Analyzing the Impact of Expanded Gambling on New Hampshire

Full Report (PDF)

Brief Description

In the summer of 2009, Governor John Lynch established the New Hampshire Gaming Study Commission. The Commission was tasked with undertaking a “thorough and comprehensive review of various models for expanded gaming” in New Hampshire.

The Commission retained the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies to conduct technical research and analysis for its review. Our first report, A Brief Report on Gambling in New Hampshire, was published in December, 2009.  In this second report, the Center documents the development of a series of inter-related models that analyze the impacts of expanded gambling in New Hampshire. 

The Commission requested that we develop a model that supports a “prudent calculation” of the costs and benefits of expanded gambling. Any models were to be based on an understanding of the variation in geography, size and type of expansion, and its impact on state revenues, substitution, economic development, crime, and any offsetting expenditures associated with the social or behavioral implications of expanded gambling.

Our models are based on balanced assumptions about the amount of capital investment, the size and type of facility, facility location, population and income levels, and the potential action of other states (i.e. Massachusetts) to produce a series of estimates of the revenues to the state, economic development implications, and the financial costs of social impacts associated with gambling.