{"title":"Do Casinos Contribute to Violent Crime? A Panel Data Analysis of Michigan Counties","authors":"Philip Thompson, Gregory A. Falls","doi":"10.5750/JGBE.V8I2.825","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A key part of the debate over the current rapid increase in the number of casinos in the U.S. concerns the impact on crime rates resulting from the presence of a casino. In this analysis we use panel data covering all 83 Michigan counties for each year 1994-2010 to investigate whether the existence and size of a casino in a host county or in a nearby county affect the rates of four violent crimes: murder, rape, aggravated assault, and arson. We include a number of variables to control for factors that affect crime more generally. We find that county violent crime rates in Michigan do not rise in the presence of a casino, and in the case of aggravated assault, may actually fall. Previous studies of the impact of casinos on a variety of crimes in a variety of locations have shown mixed results.","PeriodicalId":109210,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Gambling Business and Economics","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2014-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Journal of Gambling Business and Economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5750/JGBE.V8I2.825","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
A key part of the debate over the current rapid increase in the number of casinos in the U.S. concerns the impact on crime rates resulting from the presence of a casino. In this analysis we use panel data covering all 83 Michigan counties for each year 1994-2010 to investigate whether the existence and size of a casino in a host county or in a nearby county affect the rates of four violent crimes: murder, rape, aggravated assault, and arson. We include a number of variables to control for factors that affect crime more generally. We find that county violent crime rates in Michigan do not rise in the presence of a casino, and in the case of aggravated assault, may actually fall. Previous studies of the impact of casinos on a variety of crimes in a variety of locations have shown mixed results.