IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v88y2021i2p649-679.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Did video gaming expansion boost municipal revenues in Illinois?

Author

Listed:
  • Gary A. Wagner
  • Douglas M. Walker

Abstract

One supposed benefit of authorizing video gaming terminals (VGTs) outside of casinos is to improve the fiscal health of local governments. Illinois passed the Video Gaming Act in 2009, enabling individual municipalities to allow VGTs. To date, the machines have generated $400 million in municipal tax revenues and $2 billion for the state. We use a difference‐in‐differences strategy that adjusts for staggered adoption to isolate the causal effect of VGTs on municipal revenues. We find that VGTs displace other local taxable retail, leaving total municipal revenues unchanged. The video gaming act merely reallocated economic activity and did little to improve municipal finances.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary A. Wagner & Douglas M. Walker, 2021. "Did video gaming expansion boost municipal revenues in Illinois?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(2), pages 649-679, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:88:y:2021:i:2:p:649-679
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12537
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/soej.12537?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ethan Grumstrup & Mark W. Nichols, 2021. "Is video gambling terminal placement and spending in Illinois correlated with neighborhood characteristics?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 67(2), pages 273-298, October.
    2. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    3. Karthik Muralidharan & Nishith Prakash, 2017. "Cycling to School: Increasing Secondary School Enrollment for Girls in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 321-350, July.
    4. Brad R. Humphreys, 2021. "Legalized Sports Betting, VLT Gambling, and State Gambling Revenues: Evidence from West Virginia," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 9-28, January.
    5. Garrett, Thomas A, 2001. "The Leviathan Lottery? Testing the Revenue Maximization Objective of State Lotteries as Evidence for Leviathan," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(1-2), pages 101-117, October.
    6. Tosun, Mehmet Serkan & Skidmore, Mark, 2004. "Interstate Competition and State Lottery Revenues," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 163-178, June.
    7. Erin Hazel Phipps & Mark W. Nichols & Federico Guerrero, 2020. "The Impact of Video Gaming Terminals on Casinos and State and Local Tax Revenue," Public Finance Review, , vol. 48(5), pages 650-675, September.
    8. Grinols, Earl L., 1999. "Distance Effects in Consumption: Measuring Distance Value with Application to Casino Siting," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 29(1), pages 63-76, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Douglas M. Walker & John D. Jackson, 2008. "Do U.S. Gambling Industries Cannibalize Each Other?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(3), pages 308-333, May.
    2. Portillo, Javier E. & Wagner, Gary A., 2021. "Do cultural districts spur urban revitalization: Evidence from Louisiana," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 651-673.
    3. Harding, Torfinn & Herzberg, Julika & Kuralbayeva, Karlygash, 2021. "Commodity prices and robust environmental regulation: Evidence from deforestation in Brazil," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    4. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    5. Lindo, Jason M. & Padilla-Romo, María, 2018. "Kingpin approaches to fighting crime and community violence: Evidence from Mexico's drug war," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 253-268.
    6. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell S. Sobel, 2004. "State Lottery Revenue: The Importance of Game Characteristics," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(3), pages 313-330, May.
    7. Seiffert, Sebastian, 2015. "The Role of Economic Geography in Subnational African Development," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113186, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Claudia Buch & Catherine Koch & Michael Koetter, 2016. "Crises and rescues: liquidity transmission through international banks," BIS Working Papers 576, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Diana Ricciulli-Marín, 2020. "The Fiscal Cost of Conflict: Evidence from La Violencia in Colombia," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 53, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    10. Yue Zhao & Difang Wan, 2018. "Institutional high frequency trading and price discovery: Evidence from an emerging commodity futures market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 243-270, February.
    11. Leon Zolotoy & Don O’Sullivan & Keke Song, 2021. "The Role of Ethical Standards in the Relationship Between Religious Social Norms and M&A Announcement Returns," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 721-742, May.
    12. Rute M. Caeiro & Pedro C. Vicente, 2020. "Knowledge of vitamin A deficiency and crop adoption: Evidence from a field experiment in Mozambique," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(2), pages 175-190, March.
    13. Francis,David C. & Kubinec ,Robert, 2022. "Beyond Political Connections : A Measurement Model Approach to Estimating Firm-levelPolitical Influence in 41 Economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10119, The World Bank.
    14. Anil Kumar, 2018. "Do Restrictions on Home Equity Extraction Contribute to Lower Mortgage Defaults? Evidence from a Policy Discontinuity at the Texas Border," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 268-297, February.
    15. Angrisani Marco & Guarino Antonio & Huck Steffen & Larson Nathan C, 2011. "No-Trade in the Laboratory," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-58, April.
    16. Alfredo Burlando & Anca D. Cristea & Logan M. Lee, 2015. "The Trade Consequences of Maritime Insecurity: Evidence from Somali Piracy," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 525-557, August.
    17. Andrea Orame, 2020. "The role of bank supply in the Italian credit market: evidence from a new regional survey," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1279, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    18. Raghuram Rajan & Rodney Ramcharan, 2015. "The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1439-1477, April.
    19. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & Olivieri, Elisabetta & Triviza, Eleftheria, 2023. "Eating habits, food consumption, and health: The role of early life experiences," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-054, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. Carvalho, Augusto & Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2018. "State-controlled companies and political risk: Evidence from the 2014 Brazilian election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 66-78.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:88:y:2021:i:2:p:649-679. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.