The Economics of Regulation and Taxation Policies for Casino Tourism

Abstract

A number of states and countries have promoted the development of a casino industry primarily to attract tourists. The policies operated have generally used regulatory or taxation instruments. Such policies may or may not lead to an efficient level of investment and production for the sector. This paper considers four alternative forms of regulatory and taxation policies and examines the interactions between these two sets of investments. The authors find that a turnover tax yields an efficient outcome with a competitive industry and also in the case of a cartel association; but it will be distortionary if a multiplant private monopoly controls the sector. Furthermore, a pure public sector-owned multiplant monopolist is efficient, while a tax on the fixed costs is inefficient if a casino association regulates the sector.

Economic policy, tourism trade and productive diversification

“…Conversely, the issue of access to finance, often a prime grievance of SMEs, did not rank particularly high among the survey responses (World Bank, 2008). Moreover, a favorable investment climate is key to attracting physical capital, notably in the form of foreign direct investment, into the tourism sector (Demeritte, 1998;Barrowclough, 2007;Than and others, 2007), while alternative forms of taxation of tourism revenues can have very different welfare implications for the host country (Benar and Jenkins, 2008). The role of tax incentives for tourism investors is controversially debated in the economics literature.…”

Deconstructing place identity? Impacts of a “Racino” on Elora, Ontario, Canada

“…In addition, gaming venues have generated at least $10 billion in capital construction since their legalization (Canadian Gaming Association, 2010). For individual communities, the introduction of a gaming facility may provide taxable profits comparable to other major tourist attractions (Benar and Jenkins, 2008). Monies generated through taxation, if used for social programs, may improve the quality of life for local residents (Andereck et al, 2005).…”

The Relation between Tourism and Economic Growth: A Case of Saudi Arabia as an Emerging Tourism Destination

“…For the reason that tourism potentially contributes to economic growth, efforts have been made to assess the economic effects of various modes of tourism. The current investigations comprise papers in sports tourism (Daniels et al, 2004;Li & Jago, 2013), rural tourism (Fleischer & Tchetchik, 2005;Park et al, 2014), ethnic tourism (Theerapappisit, 2009), park tourism (Ma et al, 2009;Mayer, 2014;Saayman & Saayman, 2006), conference, convention, and exhibition tourism (Hanly, 2012), religious tourism (Saayman et al, 2014), festival tourism (Clarke & Hoaas, 2007;Saayman & Rossouw, 2011), casino gaming tourism (Benar & Jenkins, 2008;Wan, 2012), and heritage tourism (Dredge, 2004).…”