Venue/Casino

Overview

The placement and design of land-based casinos and gambling machines can have a significant influence on harmful gambling behavior. In Canada, some provinces allow for gambling machines (i.e., VLTs, EGMs) outside of casinos, while they are prohibited in others. Most provinces, however, have a land-based casino, with Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta having the most casinos.

Key Points

In the macro-design of communities with gambling, there is evidence indicating that gambling harm is more common in proximity to available land-based gambling venues. Environmental changes that may contribute to reduced harms include reducing per capita density of gaming machines and gambling outlets, restricting distribution of gambling opportunities to a limited number of venues, restricting trading hours, and limiting smoking or the provision of alcohol to gambling patrons. Environmental factors can also affect play on gambling machines and may influence problem gambling behaviour.

Search the Evidence Centre for Venue/Casino

References

Abbott, Max; Binde, Per; Clark, Luke; Hodgins, David; Korn, David; Pereira, Alexius; Quilty, Lena; Thomas, Anna; Volberg, Rachel; Walker, Douglas; Williams, Robert. (2015). Conceptual Framework of Harmful Gambling: An International Collaboration Revised Edition. Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO), Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Finlay-Gough, K., Marmurek, H., Kanetkar, V., & Londerville, J. (2015, June). The Influence of Casino Architecture and Structure on Problem Gambling Behaviour: An Examination Using Virtual Reality Technology. In ECRM2015-Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Research Methods 2015: ECRM 2015 (p. 187). Academic Conferences Limited.

Rockloff, M. J., Moskovsky, N., Thorne, H., Browne, M., & Bryden, G. M. (2016). Environmental Factors in the Choice of EGMs: A Discrete Choice Experiment. Journal of Gambling Studies, 1-16.