Gambling is the fourth-largest source of state tax revenue, but a new report released Tuesday cautioned that the gaming landscape could be changing in ways that reduce the benefits the state sees from the activity.
The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center published a paper Tuesday examining how the state collects and spends gambling revenue. Like research from the UMass Donahue Institute this summer, MassBudget pointed out that casino revenues have been essentially stagnant since the introduction of legal sports betting. That trend could alter the balance between what the report calls “the harms wrought by the gambling industry and the public benefits made possible by its revenue” if online sports betting takes the place of casino patronage or cannibalizes casino revenue.
