Do casinos cause crime? Question is hotly debated

By Rachel Dissell

Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND

As developers worked on plans for a $350 million downtown casino last year, Cleveland patrolmen were being warned to brace for a spike in crime that they were told would surely follow.

But the conventional belief, often fueled by Hollywood’s version of the gambling world, that casinos are responsible for bringing new crime to a city is not necessarily a certain reality.

The issue has been the subject of numerous academic studies, and clear answers don’t exist about whether casinos cause crime. The question is hotly debated.

Some researchers say evidence exists that street crimes increase in counties where casinos opened and even in counties nearby.

Others contend any increase could be linked to the fact that many more people come to the area, not to the nature of the casinos.

Law-enforcement officials in nearby states where casinos have been up and running say the predictions of an impending jump in street crimes never came true.

“Some of the horror stories we were hearing have never materialized,” said Detroit Police Commander Kenneth Williams.

Research isn’t conclusive. Studies are far from consistent. Some suggest that crime rates, though unchanged in the early stages of a casino’s operations, climb after several years and go beyond the perimeter of the casinos.

One oft-cited study, “Casinos, Crime, and Community Costs” by economists Earl Grinols and David Mustard, was published in 2006 in The Review of Economics and Statistics.

It uses crime data collected from nearly 20 years between 1977 and 1996 and shows that the rate of street crime — such as robberies and assaults — increased in counties where casinos opened.

The study looked at violent and theft-related crimes. The authors found that “roughly 8 percent of crime in casino counties in 1996 was attributable to casinos, costing the average adult $75 per year.” The study found that nearby counties also were affected by new crime.

But other research, including some written by economist Douglas Walker at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, argues that crime rates around casinos would stay the same or actually be reduced if number- crunchers accounted for the influx of tourists in addition to the people who live near the casino.

The argument is that when any mass of people is concentrated in an area, whether for a casino, a convention center or a sporting event, more crimes will occur.