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Supplying Slot Machines to the Poor
Author(s) -
Bubonya Melisa,
Byrne David P.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/soej.12407
Subject(s) - incentive , tax revenue , disadvantaged , revenue , exploit , business , oligopoly , per capita , government (linguistics) , public economics , economics , government revenue , microeconomics , finance , economic growth , computer security , cournot competition , computer science , population , linguistics , philosophy , demography , sociology
As gambling becomes increasingly accessible worldwide, governments face an important policy question: how should they exploit the industry's growth to raise tax revenue while protecting individuals from the detrimental effects of gambling? Using data on slot machines from the largest per capita gambling market in the world, Australia, we estimate a structural oligopoly model to (i) quantify firms' incentives to make gambling accessible among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and (ii) evaluate the effect of government policy (tax levies, supply caps, and venue smoking bans) on the distribution of slot machine supply, tax revenue, and problem gambling prevalence.