ALCOHOL, GAMBLING ADDICTION AND CRIME

Alcohol and Gambling Addiction and How They Lead To Crime



Alcohol and Gambling Addiction and How They Lead To Crime

Introduction

Researchers have identified and studied several links between gambling and crime. Most studies that establish a relationship between pathological gambling and crime have found that pathological gamblers are predisposed to commit crimes, such as embezzlement, forgery, fraud, and theft, in order to pay for current wagers or to repay debts from previous gambling losses. However, other research shows that pathological gamblers are often involved in a wide range of illegal activities, including drug dealing, to obtain money to gamble and to pay debts. As involvement in gambling intensifies, options for funding gambling activities decrease and involvement in illegal activities may increase (Blaszczynski and McConaghy 1994; Spunt et al. 1998).

The NORC study found that pathological gamblers had higher arrest and imprisonment rates than nonpathological gamblers (NORC 1999: 10). The National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC 1999) questions the reliability of many of the studies that have explored the relationship between gambling and crime. For instance, some studies were limited to particular types of crime and/or particular locations. Generalizing results from such a limited study would be invalid. This paper discusses alcohol and gambling addiction and how they lead to crime in a concise and comprehensive way.

Alcohol, Gambling Addiction and How They Lead To Crime

Historically, a majority of the general public was biased against the introduction of legalized gambling, based on the fear that gambling would increase criminal activity. Contrary to this, some studies have noted that legalized gambling reduces crime because it eliminates incentives for illegal gambling. When a large sample of the available literature is examined, it shows that communities with casinos are just as safe as communities that do not have casinos (NGISC 1999).

Particularly during the 1990s, rapid expansion of casino gaming venues has resulted in widespread concern that casino gambling is the inevitable precursor to increased incidence of white-collar crimes. To determine whether a pathological gambler, desperate to cover debts incurred in casinos, would be likely to steal from the nearest, easiest targets, such as employers, employees, or other business contacts, Albanese (1999) examined trends in arrests for embezzlement, forgery, and fraud in nine of the largest casino gambling markets. Albanese found no consistent pattern of increase or decrease in white-collar crimes, except that more jurisdictions reported decreasing than increasing arrest rates. Clearly, these results do not support the theory that introduction of legalized gambling inevitably leads to higher crime rates.

Miller and Schwartz (1998) studied casino gambling and street crime, including robbery, burglary, assault, rape, theft, and murder, to determine if the introduction of casino gambling is indeed linked to an increase in street crime. They examined some studies that claimed to demonstrate a relationship between casino gambling and street crime. They discovered that most of these studies were reported in terms of per capita crime rates, based on the number of permanent residents of the ...