Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Robert Williams, Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Lethbridge and Researcher, Alberta Gaming Research Institute
SUBJECT: #186 AGRI: First Nations Casinos and Gambling Research
SYNOPSIS: Gambling researcher Dr. Rob Williams talks about some of the latest surveys about casinos in First Nations communities.
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
#186 December 20, 2005
Interview starts at 13:12
Intro: Alberta already has sixteen casinos. And out of the ten approved applications for new casinos, seven are from First Nations groups. Dr. Rob Williams is a professor in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Lethbridge and he’s a researcher with the Alberta Gaming Research Institute. Rob recently hosted a forum on Aboriginal casinos which introduced some of the latest research on the topic. I spoke with Rob the day before the forum.
Dr. Robert Williams
RW: The Alberta government ifted the moratorium on casinos three years ago, so there’s a whole pile of applications. Ten of these have been approved. But again, the question we academics would pose is that, shouldn’t there be some constraints on this. Is it anything goes? The market decides? Or what is the best strategy here?
CC: WELL, CAN THE MARKET EVEN SUPPORT THAT MANY CASINOS, NEW CASINOS?
RW: Well, good, that’s a very good question. My personal prediction is no, that Alberta already has the second highest number of casinos in Canada. And with these ten additional ones we’ll have the highest in Canada, and one of the highest numbers of any jurisdiction outside of Nevada. So yes, the economical viability of these things is a questions aside from the social aspects of it.
Some probably will work, but my guess is some probably won’t fly.
CC: WHAT WOULD BE THE INTEREST ON THE PART OF FIRST NATIONS TO JUMP ON THE CASINO BANDWAGON?
RW: Economics. Generally there are a lot of aboriginal casinos in the United States, and for the most part, that’s been an economic success story. A quarter of all the gaming revenue in the United States comes from aboriginal casinos. So a lot of bands have done very, very well economically. So that’s the impetus for developing something similar here in Canada.
There’s an important difference, however, that not a lot of people appreciate. And that is the fact that the US bands have a monopoly for the most part, that most states don’t have their own casinos. So you have a monopoly over the market. Here in Alberta we have 16 existing commercial casinos that all these new aboriginal casinos are going to have to compete against.
CC: THAT’S THE ECONOMIC SIDE OF IT. WHAT ABOUT THE SOCIAL SIDE?
RW: Well the social side is equally important. That yes, the studies have shown that there have significant economic benefits to tribes in the United States that have implemented these things, as well as decreased poverty and increased house prices.
But it’s also come with increased bankruptcies and increased crime. And no one has actually measured the problem gambling rates in these communities, but that’s presumably what these other crime and bankruptcy are all about.
The reality is, aboriginal communities in North America already have the highest rates of problem gambling in North America. Telephone surveys suggest about 10 to 15 percent of North American aboriginals are problem gamblers. And it may be even higher when you do house to house surveys.
So the real problem is that you’re putting gambling in the backyard of communities with already the highest existing rates of problem gambling.
CC: WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND IN YOUR RESEARCH?
RW: Well one of the speakers tomorrow is going to be Phyllis Daychief. She was the research coordinator for a project that we commissioned on the Blood Reserve as well as in Edmonton looking at First Nation’s conceptualization of gambling.
On the Blood Reserve, they did several strategies. One was a survey of the populace. The second was interviews with key informants as well as the band council and social service providers, to try and get a sense, first of all, what do people consider gambling. And how do westernized forms of gambling relate to their traditional forms? And they see them as quite different. Western forms are western forms. They have a commercial function. Whereas a lot of their traditional forms of gambling are ceremonial and recreational function. So that was one interesting finding.
The second concerned the perceptions about the rates of problem gambling and the signs and symptoms of problem gambling in their community. And for the Blood Reserve, the survey found some fairly startling numbers. Roughly a quarter of the people they surveyed were identified as severe problem gamblers. And that’s a higher rate than obtained in virtually any other survey before.
Now the unique thing about this survey is it’s a house to house survey. And the telephone survey only found 10 to 15 percent, but maybe that makes sense. People who have lost their phone service are more likely to be problem gamblers. But if that rate is true, then it really makes the introduction of a casino on a reserve an especially problematic thing.
And in terms of a support for a casino, at least in the survey they did, there was not much support for it.
CC: YOU MENTIONED THE TRADITIONAL CULTURAL APPROACH TO GAMBLING. COULD YOU GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT SOME OF THOSE GAMES MIGHT HAVE BEEN IN THE PAST?
RW: Well they had a lot of athletic games. Games of skill. A game that’s still played quite often still is called hand games or stick games. This is where you have two groups of almost always male tribe members who are trying to hide an object, either behind their backs or under a rug. And the other team often from a different team, often from a different reserve, will have to guess after the drumming is stopped who is actually hiding this object. And there will be bets on whether the person is right or not. And that’s a fairly unique aboriginal form of gambling. Almost none of their traditional forms are similar to any existing western form. That’s a good illustrative example.
CC: HOW BIG A ROLE WAS IT THEN IN THEIR CULTURE, THE GAMBLING PART OF IT?
RW: It was fundamental. You look at cultures around the world in terms of how incorporated gambling is a part of their culture, and two societies come up time and time again. One is the Chinese, or Asian more generally. And second is North American aboriginals. It’s been more a fundamental part of their cultures than any other cultures in the world.
That there’s evidence of gambling in North American aboriginal cultures a thousand years before European contact. So it really is fairly fundamental. Even in their mythology, you have evidence of gambling heroes, a very unique cultural and mythical aspect of their culture. So it really was pervasive and fundamental.
CC: HOW DOES IT MANIFEST ITSELF TODAY THEN IF IT’S A CULTURAL TRADITION?
RW: Well people wonder whether perhaps its this long tradition of gambling that has made North American aboriginal populations so susceptible to the problems that are currently existing. I’m not sure about that. But its, it’s one possible explanation for these problems.
CC: NOW THAT THESE CASIONOS ARE GOING AHEAD, WHAT PLANS DO YOU HAVE FOR THE FUTURE TO WATCH THE SITUATION?
RW: Well it’s a perfect landscape for research on before and after effects of aboriginal casinos. All the data is potentially there to study the rates of problem gambling, the economic benefits that will accrue, the bankruptcies, the increase or decrease in house prices, attitudinal changes. So it’s a perfect laboratory to do a really good rigorous analysis in Alberta of what the true costs and benefits are. So that’s of interest to me.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, ROB.
RW: You are more than welcome.
Dr. Rob Williams is a professor in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Lethbridge and a researcher with the Alberta Gaming Research Institute.
FEATURED LINK: Alberta Gaming Research Institute