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Second, nearly every study used small samples,
most frequently Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or
Reno.
Many of these studies reach conflicting
conclusions. Albanese (1985) examined areas
around Atlantic
City, arguing that New Jersey’s Crime Casino Act
(1977) minimized the increase in crime. Lee and
Chelius (1989) concluded that the New Jersey
Casino Control Commission kept Atlantic City
casino
ownership and management free from organized
crime, but had little impact on labor unions, in
which
organized crime played a large role. Friedman,
Hakim and Weinblatt (1989) studied 64 localities
near
Atlantic City with populations over 1000. They
found that casinos increased violent crimes,
burglary
and auto theft. Buck, Hakim and Spiegel (1991)
also reported that Atlantic City gambling
increased
crime rates. Chiricos (1994), in contrast,
reported that cities with legalized gambling
(Atlantic City,
Las Vegas, and Reno) had lower crime rates than
selected Florida tourist cities if one diluted
crime
rate numbers by including visitors in the
population base denominator. We discuss the
implications
of different calculation of crime rates in
Section III. Thompson, Gazel, and Rickman
(1996a) studied
county-level panel data from Wisconsin and found
that casino gambling significantly increased
crime
rates in counties with casinos and those with
casinos in two adjacent counties. Margolis
(1997) studied
only Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, and
Deadwood, SD, while Albanese (1999) studied only
nine large
casino markets. Gazel, Rickman, and Thompson
(2001) analyzed Wisconsin data and concluded
that
casinos increase crime both in their own and in
neighboring counties. Although these studies
have
different conclusions, they are similar in that
they examine small samples.
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