CITATIONS
1) AGLC, “Alberta’s Charitable Gaming Model,” https://aglc.ca/gaming/charitablegaming/albertas-charitable-gaming-model.
2) If a charity’s application to run a casino event is successful, it is assigned by AGLC to one of ten designated casino regions
in the province (all of which have wait times from eighteen months to three years). All charities must hire one or two casino
advisors to assist them with running their event. Proceeds are distributed to charities by region and quarter: all charities that
conduct a casino event in a given region and quarter receive an equal share of that region’s quarterly casino profits. AGLC,
“Gaming Licenses: Casino,” https://aglc.ca/gaming/licences/casino.
3) AGLC, “Annual Report 2018–19,” 43, https://aglc.ca/sites/aglc.ca/files/aglc_files/AGLC_AnnualReport_2019.pdf.
4) AGRI, “Government & Gambling—Canada,” https://abgamblinginstitute.ca/resources/reference-sources/government-gambling-
canada.
5) WCLC, “About WCLC,” https://www.wclc.com/about-us/about-wclc.htm.
6) AGRI, “Government & Gambling—Canada.”
7) Government of Alberta “Implementing Budget 2019,” https://www.alberta.ca/implementing-budget-2019.aspx.
8) AGLC, “AGLC Annual Report 2018–19.”
9) C.S. Campbell, T.F. Hartnagel, and G.J. Smith, “The Legalization of Gambling in Canada,” Report prepared for Law Commission
of Canada, “What Is a Crime?,” 2005, 15–21, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2008/lcc-cdc/JL2-64-2005E.
pdf; R. Williams, Y. Belanger, and J. Arthur, “Gambling in Alberta: History, Current Status and Socioeconomic Impacts,” report
to the Alberta Gaming Research Institute, April 2, 2011, 30–73, https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/48495.
10) AGLC, “AGLC Annual Report 2018–19.”
11) Government of Alberta, “Government of Alberta Annual Reports,” https://www.alberta.ca/government-and-ministry-annual-
reports.aspx.
12) Williams, Belanger, and Arthur, “Gambling in Alberta,” 103.
13) Katherine Marshall, “Gambling 2011,” Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labour and Income, Winter 2011, https://
www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-001-x/2011004/article/11551-eng.htm, 6; John McCready et al., “Gambling and Seniors:
Sociodemographic and Mental Health Factors Associated with Problem Gambling in Older Adults in Canada,” report on research
award for the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre, April 2010, 57, https://www.greo.ca/Modules/EvidenceCentre/
Details/gambling-and-seniors-sociodemographic-and-mental-health-factors-associated-problem-gamblin-1; M. MacDonald, J. L. McMullan, and D.C. Perrier, “Gambling Households in Canada,” Journal of Gambling Studies 20, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 194.
14) Author’s calculations based on data from Statistics Canada, “Table 11-10-0223-01: Household Spending by Household Income
Quintile, Canada, Regions and Provinces,” https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110022301. For detailed calculation
methodology, see B. Dijkema and J. Wolfert, Pressing Its Luck: How Ontario Lottery and Gaming Can Work For, Not Against,
Low-Income Households (Cardus, 2020), https://www.cardus.ca/research/work-economics/reports/pressing-its-luck/.
15) All figures are author’s calculations based on data from Statistics Canada’s Canada Income Survey and Survey of Household
Spending. Statistics Canada, “Household Spending by Household Income Quintile, Canada, Regions and Provinces”;
User Guide to the Survey of Household Spending, 2015 (Ottawa: Income Statistics Division, 2017), https://www150.statcan.
gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/62F0026M2017001; Statistics Canada, “Table 11-10-0193-01: Upper Income Limit, Income Share and
Average of Adjusted Market, Total and After-Tax Income by Income Decile,” https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?
pid=1110019301. For detailed calculation methodology, see Dijkema and Wolfert, Pressing Its Luck.
16) See, e.g., R.J. Williams and R.A. Volberg, “Gambling and Problem Gambling in Ontario.” Report prepared for the Ontario
Problem Gambling Research Centre and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, June 2013. http://hdl.handle.
net/10133/3378; MacDonald, McMullan, and Perrier, “Gambling Households in Canada”; J.D. Wisman, “State Lotteries: Using
State Power to Fleece the Poor,” Journal of Economic Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics) 40, no. 4 (December 2006):
955–66; J. Orford et al., “The Role of Social Factors in Gambling: Evidence from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey,”
Community, Work & Family 13, no. 3 (August 2010): 258; T. Bol, B. Lancee, and S. Steijn, “Income Inequality and Gambling: A
Panel Study in the United States (1980–1997),” Sociological Spectrum 34, no. 1 (January 2014): 64; K.B. Lang and M. Omori, “Can
Demographic Variables Predict Lottery and Pari-Mutuel Losses? An Empirical Investigation,” Journal of Gambling Studies 25, no.
2 (June 2009): 173; S. Castrén et al., “The Relationship Between Gambling Expenditure, Sociodemographics, Health-Related
Correlates and Gambling Behavior: A Cross-Sectional Population-Based Survey in Finland,” Addiction 113, no. 1 (2018): 91–92.
17) Author’s calculations based on data from Statistics Canada, “Table 11-10-0193-01: Upper Income Limit, Income Share and
Average of Adjusted Market, Total and After-Tax Income by Income Decile.” For detailed calculation methodology, see Dijkema
and Wolfert, Pressing Its Luck.
18) Statistics Canada, “Table 36-10-0101-01: Distributions of Household Economic Accounts, Number of Households,
by Income Quintile and by Socio-demographic Characteristic,” https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?
pid=3610010101#timeframe.
19) AGLC, “Annual Report 2016–17,” https://aglc.ca/sites/aglc.ca/files/aglc_files/2016-2017_AGLC_Annual_Report.pdf. Figures
adjusted for inflation.
20) R.T. Wood and R.J. Williams, “‘How Much Money Do You Spend on Gambling?’ The Comparative Validity of Question Wordings
Used to Assess Gambling Expenditure,” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10, no. 1 (2007): 63–77.
21) Author’s calculations based on AGLC Annual Reports and Statistics Canada, “Table 11-10-0223-01: Household Spending
by Household Income Quintile, Canada, Regions and Provinces.” For detailed calculation methodology, see Dijkema and
Wolfert, Pressing Its Luck.
22) See, e.g., M. Abdel-Ghany and D.L. Sharpe, “Lottery Expenditures in Canada: Regional Analysis of Probability of Purchase,
Amount of Purchase, and Incidence,” Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 30, no. 1 (2001): 64–78; MacDonald,
McMullan, and Perrier, “Gambling Households in Canada”; Castrén et al., “The Relationship Between Gambling Expenditure,
Socio-demographics, Health-Related Correlates and Gambling Behavior”; A. Tan, S. Yen, and R. Nayga Jr., “Socio-demographic
Determinants of Gambling Participation and Expenditures: Evidence from Malaysia,” International Journal of Consumer
Studies 34 (2010): 316–25; T. Davidson et al., Gambling Expenditure in the ACT (2014): By Level of Problem Gambling, Type of
Activity, and Socioeconomic and Demographic Characteristics (Canberra: Australian National University, 2016), 11, https://
www.gamblingandracing.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/982774/2014-Gambling-Expenditure.pdf; J. Beckert and M.
Lutter, “The Inequality of Fair Play: Lottery Gambling and Social Stratification in Germany,” European Sociological Review 25,
no. 4 (August 2009): 475–88.
23) S. Speer, “Forgotten People and Forgotten Places: Canada’s Economic Performance in the Age of Populism,” Macdonald-
Laurier Institute, August 2019, https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/MLI_Speer_ScopingSeries1_FWeb.pdf.
24) An in-depth review of the literature on gambling among Indigenous communities is beyond the scope of this paper, but
readers are encouraged to explore the substantial body of research on this topic. See, e.g., H. Breen and S. Gainsbury, “Aboriginal
Gambling and Problem Gambling: A Review,” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 11 (2013): 75–96;
D. Wardman, N. El-Guebaly, and D. Hodgins, “Problem and Pathological Gambling in North American Aboriginal Populations:
A Review of the Empirical Literature,” Journal of Gambling Studies 17, no. 2 (2001): 81–100; R.J. Williams, R.M.G. Stevens, and
G. Nixon, “Gambling and Problem Gambling in North American Indigenous Peoples,” in First Nations Gaming in Canada, ed.
Y. Belanger (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2011), 166–94; New Zealand Ministry of Health, “Gambling and Problem
Gambling: Results of the 2011/12 New Zealand Health Survey,” 2015, https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/gamblingand-
problem-gambling-results-2011-12-new-zealand-health-survey; L. Dyall, “Gambling: A Poison Chalice for Indigenous
Peoples,” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction 8 (2010): 205–13; Williams and Wood, The Demographic Sources
of Ontario Gaming Revenue; M. Stevens and M. Young, “Betting on the Evidence: Reported Gambling Problems among the Indigenous Population of the Northern Territory,” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health 33, no. 6 (December 2009):
556–65; C. Currie et al., “Racial Discrimination, Post Traumatic Stress, and Gambling Problems among Urban Aboriginal
Adults in Canada,” Journal of Gambling Studies 29, no. 3 (2013): 393–415.
25) Williams, Belanger, and Arthur, “Gambling and Problem Gambling in Alberta,” 165. For a collected summary of provincial gambling
prevalence studies conducted in Canada, see Alberta Gambling Research Institute, “Prevalence—Canada Provincial Studies,”
last modified June 17, 2016, https://abgamblinginstitute.ca/resources/reference-sources/prevalence-canada-provincial-studies.
26) For a concise overview of this research, see R. Volberg, L. McNamara, and K. Carris, “Risk Factors for Problem Gambling
in California: Demographics, Comorbidities and Gambling Participation,” Journal of Gambling Studies 34 (2018): 360–63; see
also F.K. Lorains, S. Cowlishaw, and S.A. Thomas, “Prevalence of Comorbid Disorders in Problem and Pathological Gambling:
Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Population Surveys,” Addiction 106 (2011): 490–98; R. Williams, R. Volberg, and R.
Stevens, “The Population Prevalence of Problem Gambling: Methodological Influences, Standardized Rates, Jurisdictional
Differences, and Worldwide Trends,” report prepared for the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre and the Ontario
Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, February 2012, https://opus.uleth.ca/handle/10133/4838.
27) Williams et al., “Gambling in Alberta,” 105.
28) N.D. Schüll, Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), discussed
in Matthew Crawford, “Autism as a Design Principle: Gambling,” in The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in
an Age of Distraction (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), 89–112. EGMs have provocatively been described by some
researchers as “the crack cocaine of gambling” (N. Dowling, D. Smith, and T. Thomas, “Electronic Gaming Machines: Are They
the ‘Crack-Cocaine’ of Gambling?,” Addiction 100 [2005]: 33–45), though Dowling et al. conclude that despite the consistent
association in the literature between EGMs and “the highest level of problem gambling,” the empirical evidence available
at time of writing was insufficient to definitively “establish the absolute ‘addictive’ potential of EGMs” (42). See also V.V. MacLaren,
“Video Lottery Is the Most Harmful Form of Gambling in Canada,” Journal of Gambling Studies 32, no. 2 (June 2016):
459–85; Gambling Research Exchange Ontario, “Slots and VLTs,” https://www.greo.ca/en/topics/slots-and-vlts.aspx; Centre
for Addiction and Mental Health, “About Slot Machines,” https://www.problemgambling.ca/gambling-help/gambling-information/
about-slot-machines.aspx; J. Rosengren, “How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts,” The Atlantic, December 2016,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/losing-it-all/505814/.
29) C. Livingstone, “How Electronic Gambling Machines Work,” 2, https://aifs.gov.au/agrc/sites/default/files/publication-documents/
1706_argc_dp8_how_electronic_gambling_machines_work.pdf; see also K.A. Harrigan et al., “Research Briefing
Note: Summary of the Effect and Regulation of Electronic Gaming Machine Near Misses and Losses Disguised as Wins (LDWs)
on Players,” Gambling Research Exchange Ontario, August 24, 2016, https://www.greo.ca/Modules/EvidenceCentre/Details/
research-briefing-note-summary-effect-and-regulation-electronic-gaming-machine-near-misses; Harrigan, “Gap Analysis:
Structural Characteristics of EGMs as Indirect Risk Factors for Problem Gambling Versus the Gaming Regulations,” Gambling
Research Exchange Ontario, https://www.greo.ca/Modules/EvidenceCentre/Details/gap-analysis-structural-characteristics-
egms-indirect-risk-factors-problem-gambling-versus-1; C. Jensen et al., “Misinterpreting ‘Winning’ in Multiline Slot
Machine Games,” International Gambling Studies 13, no 1 (2012): 112–26, DOI: 10.1080/14459795.2012.717635.
30) Global News, “Province orders Alberta casinos to Close amid COVID-19 Pandemic,” March 17, 2020, https://globalnews.ca/
news/6690441/coronavirus-alberta-casinos-mass-gathering-limits/.
31) Gamblers Anonymous, “Recovery Program,” http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/content/recovery-program.
32) Many Canadians are asset-poor, making them particularly vulnerable to the loss of income accompanying an unexpected
layoff. See J. Robson, “Assets in the New Government of Canada Poverty Dashboard: Measurement Issues and Policy Implications,”
presentation to the Canadian Economics Association, May 31, 2019, https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ty0pqay5vkuq7j/
Presentation_Robson_CEA2019.pdf?dl=0, https://www.compassworkingcapital.org/why-asset-poverty-matters, https://
www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/half-canadians-dont-have-enough-savings-250447.
33) D. Rothwell and J. Robson, “The Prevalence and Composition of Asset Poverty in Canada: 1999, 2005, and 2012,” International
Journal of Social Welfare 27, no. 1 (2018): 17–27; McGill Newsroom, “Half of Canadians Don’t Have Enough Savings,”
May 11, 2015, https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/half-canadians-dont-have-enough-savings-250447; Erica
Alini, “Coronavirus: Nearly 1 Million Canadians Applied for EI Last Week,” Global News, March 24, 2020, https://globalnews.ca/
news/6726111/coronavirus-ei-claims-1-million/.
34) National Savings and Investments, “Premium Bonds,” https://www.nsandi.com/premium-bonds-25?ccd=NQBPAC; Save
to Win, “History of Save to Win,” http://www.savetowin.org/product-info/history-of-save-to-win; Michigan Credit Union
League, “Save to Win Celebrates 10 Years, $50 Million Saved in First Half of 2019,” July 23, 2019, https://www.mcul.org/
News?article_id=29123.
35) L. Dadayan, “State Revenues From Gambling: Short-Term Relief, Long-Term Disappointment,” The Nelson A. Rockefeller
Institute of Government, April 2016, https://rockinst.org/issue-area/state-revenues-gambling-short-term-relief-long-termdisappointment/.
36) D.N. McCloskey, “Bourgeois Virtues?,” Cato Policy Report, May 18, 2006, https://www.deirdremccloskey.com/articles/bv/
cato.php.