The Spatial Extents of Casino Catchments in Australia

Abstract

Casinos have proliferated throughout Australia and in many other parts of the world since the late twentieth century. An emerging body of research has started to explicitly consider the social and economic impacts of casinos in different settings. Many of the potential impacts of casinos are spatially patterned and relate to the connectivity of patrons and venues. In this paper, we use a predictive trade-area analysis technique, the Huff model, to estimate the spatial extent of casino catchments in Australia and compare these outputs to travel data from National Visitors Survey. Many casinos draw patrons from regional areas and from other states, a set of cross-jurisdictional patterns that pose regulatory challenges in terms of managing economic benefits and the distribution of harms arising from casino gambling. Avenues for logical extensions of the approach are discussed as well as alternative methods of sourcing data for validating predictive outputs.

The geographic distribution of gaming machine proceeds in New Zealand

“…However, one must be aware that casinos typically have substantially larger catchment zones compared to community EGM venues. Indeed, one would have to estimate casino catchment zones using a methodology akin to that employed by Markham et al (2014b), before distributing GMP from each casino to meshblocks inside the catchment zone. One would also have to factor into the analysis the fact that a significant proportion of GMP from casino venues may be attributed to international tourism.…”

“…This methodology was subsequently replicated by Rintoul et al (2013) to analyse catchment zones in the city of Melbourne and used to show that gambling expenditure was positively associated with both EGM accessibility and increased levels of socio-economic disadvantage. At a national level Markham et al (2014b) employed a Huff model to estimate the catchment zones of Australian casinos. The same authors also sought to calibrate the model of Doran and Young (2010) by comparing its predictions to empirically observed results (Markham et al 2014a).…”

The role of distance in peri-urban national park use: Who visits them and how far do they travel?

“…The basis of this assertion was that distance affects many spatial patterns, processes and relationships, and even underpins Tobler's (1970) observations about the relatedness of things in space e often referred to as the 'first law of geography'. Geographers have given attention to the explicit role of distance decay across a variety of humaneenvironment interactions, such as travel-demand behaviour for facilities including food distribution centres (LeDoux & Vojnovic, 2014), casinos (Markham, Doran, & Young, 2014), and health care (McGrail & Humphreys, 2009). Distance decay effects have also been observed in demand for recreation and tourism facilities (e.g.…”

Game on! A new integrated resort business model

“…For Australian IRs, with their state-based licencing (regulation), operator strategies are largely focussed on servicing local customers (Slaughter, 2016). There is little specialised input required in terms of bricks and mortar/gaming product/human services and inputs (Markham et al , 2014). Additionally, there does not appear to be immediate threats posed by technological advances such as online gaming, which compete in different market segments.…”