Massachusetts Casino Openings May Impact Impaired Driving Rates

There were tens of thousands of DUIs or instances of impaired driving inward MA since commercial message casinos were opened in 2015, according to an analysis presented latterly to the MA Gaming Commission (MGC).

During Thursday’s meeting, MGC member Brad Benny Hill (R-Ipswich) said he was well-chosen to hear that the keep down of impaired drivers wasn’t as in high spirits as he thought it could be. Hill, a former commonwealth representative, voted for the Expanded Gaming Act of 2011 that allowed the state’s tercet commercial-grade gaming properties to open, according to the State House News Service, a Massachusetts tidings agency.

Christopher Bruce, an MGC consultant, added that a “certain figure of additional drunk impulsive trips is essentially inevitable when you hold facilities that attend to alcohol.” That tin conduct to both DUI arrests and collisions, he warned.

Unless we maintain a figure of crashes that is significantly above what we would judge the come to live … so we tin say the casinos are probably operating optimally and deterring as a great deal drunk driving as they fairly can,” Robert I added.

Massachusetts’ commercial message casinos are the Plainridge Mungo Park Casino, MGM Springfield, and Encore Bean Town Harbor.

“I don’t consider any grounds or haven’t heard any grounds that they’re non complying so far,” Bruce said virtually the efforts made past the venues to comply with rules on alcohol use.

However, fines hold taken localise for lapses. Last March, MGM Springfield was fined $18,000 for allowing underage patrons on the casino floor. One of the minors also got a loose lush drink. Under MA law, no more 1 under 21 is allowed on a gambling casino gaming floor. The minimum age to boozing inebriant is also 21.

‘Normal Increase’ Statement Challenged

When asked for notice on the MGC’s response, the Rev. Richard McGowan, a finance prof at Hub of the Universe College who closely follows New England gaming trends, told Casino.org,

I must say that i chance it diverting that Commissioner Alfred Hawthorne seems to follow well-chosen that it is simply the ‘normal’ increase,” McGowan told Casino.org. “I question whether Commissioner Benny Hill knows the multiplier set up on families, etc. when drunk drivers vote down other innocent drivers.”

In 2010, a work published inwards the Journal of Health Economics found a “strong data link 'tween the front of a casino in a county and the keep down of alcohol-related fateful traffic accidents.”

McGowan also points come out that the keep down of auto accidents, as comfortably as the keep down of DUIs, is just unity of the disconfirming consequences of a casino. Gaming venues also make up inebriant readily usable and some say encourage its consumption, he added.

Ban on Free Drinks

To facilitate kerb the problem, law could take in charge selective enforcement to patrol roads leading to and from gaming properties, Sir David Bruce said. The MGC members also discussed the option of a marketing exertion to monish about the risks of DUI.

Elsewhere, some states pee it illegal to offering patrons free souse drinks, McGowan said. Other states limitation the identification number of hours that alcohol put up be served.

“I doubt that these measures feature any appreciable gist on the DUI rates,” McGowan advised. “It would seem that attending a cassino i drinks either to celebrate winning or is drowning your sorrows.”