A study conducted by the University of Iowa has determined that an increase in the number of casinos does not necessarily mean there will be an increase in the overall number of casino patrons.
“It seems society reaches a saturation point beyond which additional gambling opportunities won’t capture more people,” said Donald Black, Psychiatry Professor at the University of Iowa.
The survey asked 356 Iowa residents about their gambling activity and determined that the percentage of those who gambled had not increased since the survey was first conducted in 1989, despite the fact that 21 casinos had been built in the state since.
Although the results are limited to Iowa, Black believes that the findings would be applicable in other parts of the country as well. The findings, he said, support a theory by Harvard Medical School Psychologist Howard Shaffer, who found that the number of gambling addicts in Nevada was not disproportionately higher than in other states.
