Gaming panel opens huddle in Virginia

Monday, Feb. 8, 1999 | 11:33 a.m.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Americans spent a record $51 billion, slightly more than 10 percent of their $495 billion leisure dollars, on gambling in 1997, one of the nation's foremost gambling experts said today.

But Eugene Christiansen, who participated in a just-released study on national gambling behavior, told the National Gambling Impact Study Commission that the public may be losing interest in games of chance as a leisure activity.

In recent years, casinos and state-run lotteries have spread across the country saturating the gambling market in the eyes of Americans, Christiansen said.

Christiansen said the megaresorts of Las Vegas and Atlantic City now are looking to other forms of entertainment to help attract customers.

The best business venture in Las Vegas today, Christiansen said, is the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, the most profitable shopping center in the country. The Forum Shops brings in a phenomenal $1,400 for each square foot of business, he said.

"Entertainment is the new entitlement," Christiansen said.

Though Christiansen suggested the public's enthusiasm for gaming may be waning, he said one area of possible explosive growth could be over the Internet.

He projected the amount of money Americans spend on Internet gambling could jump from $300 million in 1997 to $2.3 billion by 2001.

His testimony came as the nine-member Impact Study Commission held its seventh meeting outside Washington within the past year. The panel is conducting an informal retreat over the next two days on the campus of Regent University, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. Commission Chairwoman Kay James is dean of the Robertson School of Government here.

Christiansen was involved in a nine-month national study of gambling behavior conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The federal commission gave NORC $1.3 million to conduct the study, which was made public at today's meeting.

The 75-page study, which finds that casinos do not affect the crime and bankruptcy rates in communities, drew an early favorable reaction from industry leaders.

"I haven't read it all at this point," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the Washington-based American Gaming Association. "But everything I've seen looks very positive for the industry."

Gaming's critics have argued that crime, bankruptcies and a variety of other social costs, outweigh the economic benefits the industry brings to a community.

Fahrenkopf said he was particularly pleased that the NORC study found the percentage of pathological gamblers in the country is only .6 percent, less than half of the figure compiled by a recent Harvard University study funded by the industry.

Christiansen, meanwhile, told the commissioners that Americans spent the bulk of their gambling dollars in 1997 at casinos.

Of the $51 billion spent, $26.3 billion (52 percent), was gambled away at casinos in the nation's cities and Indian reservations, he said. Another $16.6 billion (33 percent), was spent at the 37 state-run lotteries.

The remaining 15 percent was poured into parimutuel betting, sports wagering and charitable-gambling operations such as church bingo, he said.

Christiansen said casinos and lotteries spent $18.5 billion of the $51 billion on privileged government taxes in 1997. The casino industry's share, he said, was $2.2 billion.

Americans, he added, steadily have spent a larger share of their personal income on gambling from 1982 to 1997.

The commission has a full agenda this week.

This afternoon, it was to hear presentations and recommendations on lotteries. It will hear testimony on Indian gambling on Tuesday and Internet gambling on Wednesday.

The results of a controversial NORC study on casino patrons are expected to be made public Tuesday.

The commission has until June 18 to present its findings to Congress and the president.