Proclivity for Gambling (Part 2 of 2) The Most Gambling-Crazed States

Introduction

As all of the readers may recall from the first article in this series, unlike the immensely detailed and skillful WalletHub Article mentioned last week.

We are not going to attempt to answer which States are most addicted to gambling simply because, short of actual numbers of people v. the population of a given state to refer themselves to a gambling treatment program, to say a State has the most, 'Addicts,' relies more on correlation than causation...and the correlations used seem to be pretty loose. Instead, we are going to attempt to answer which states are the most, 'Gambling-Crazed,' and our methodology is going to rely much more upon tangible numbers.

I hinted at a proposed methodology for making this determination in the previous Article, but I have decided to change it to something that I think will be even more accurate. The first thing that we are going to attempt to do is determine what states (legally) have different forms of gambling, and then to the best extent we can, we are going to attempt to determine how much revenue each form of gambling generates for any given state to determine how much money is being spent on gambling, in each individual category, for any given state.

Granted, this method is not without a couple of flaws. For example, Nevada obviously has legal casinos, and much of the revenue derived from those casinos (if not the bulk of it) comes from individuals who live outside of the State of Nevada, with much of said revenue coming from outside of the country. With that said, however, gambling is also an obvious source of jobs, both in construction and then all of the casino-associated jobs when a house is actually opened, so it can be said that Nevada certainly relies on gambling more than any other state if, in fact, that is what the numbers bear out.

Another particular flaw in this system is that I am not going to account for States with legalized Sports Betting (as its own category) at all, for two reasons:

And:

1. It's only legal in two states.
2. It takes place in the casinos of those states, and as such, falls under the gambling revenues aspect of casinos...to use it for anything else would be effectively double-counting it.

With that said, horse racing will count because it is legal in many more states, and in fact, in some cases horse tracks are legal in states that do not have legalized casinos. Therefore, unlike Sports Betting, which is fundamentally inseparable from the casino, horse racing can definitely be construed as a separate form of gambling.

Finally, we will not take Online Gaming revenues into consideration whatsoever simply because there is no reliable means with which to do so. There are currently only four states that have any form of legalized and regulated Online Gambling, so only those revenues could be considered to be highly accurate. What I will do with respect to these States, however, is that I will include any Online Gambling revenue as, 'Casino Revenue,' to as great of an extent as possible.

Online Gambling (in the general sense) will, however, be considered. The way that we will do this is that States will be awarded a certain number of, 'Points,' for the mere fact that they have legalized and regulated online gambling, and states that have explicitly (or, states in which it can be assumed) that online gambling is illegal will have points removed based on my previous research on that matter.

The scoring system will also not take Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) into consideration for a few reasons:

1. DFS is a relatively new phenomenon, so it can reasonably be suggested that the states have not all had the opportunity to legalize DFS, some states that will ultimately end up doing so simply haven't gotten around to it yet.
2. In those states in which DFS has been legalized and regulated, that set of circumstances has not been the case for a full year yet, as a result, there is no way to obtain reliable state-by-state revenue numbers.
3. We would also have to include states in which DFS can be assumed to be patently illegal, but some of those states would also be states in which online gambling, in general, is patently illegal, thus, those states would be double-counted.

We are going to start off easily enough by using the following Wikipedia page to determine what forms of gambling are legal (as of the time of this writing) in a given state.

The first thing that we have to do is look at the six forms of gambling mentioned and decide how we want to rate those, in general.

Ohio Recommended Online Casinos

Charitable

There are some States in which certain forms of gambling are expressly illegal, but exceptions are occasionally made when some or all of the revenues (or profits therefrom, anyway) are being used for a charitable cause. Bingo tends to thrive in these states, particularly in areas where there are no casinos nearby or in those states in which casinos are entirely illegal. Furthermore, certain organizations will also have, 'Casino Nights,' in many of these states in which monies can be raised for charitable organizations.

In most of these states, there is no reliable means by which the revenues from such activities are tracked. Even in the event that the revenues (and the amount that goes to charity) are to be reported, the State does not necessarily release all of these individual reports (or combine them all into one report) as public information.

Charitable Gambling, in one form or another, is legal in all but four States. Therefore, we are going to start Charitable Gambling States with a base of five points (which will be the lowest possible for these purposes) and to the extent that we can discover charitable gambling revenues (in the states where making such determination is possible or estimable) we will then award one point for each position a state occupies on the list. (For instance, the State with the greatest amount of revenue, per person, from this source of gambling would receive forty-six points because forty-six states have this form of gambling)

Unfortunately, for States in which revenues from this form of gambling cannot be determined will not be capable of receiving any extra points on a revenue/person basis. In these cases, we will use what other forms of gambling are legal in the state in question as tiebreakers.

***NOTE: After researching the charitable gambling laws for the first ten States to allow same, seven of the ten States were such that the revenues of charitable gambling could not be determined as Charitable Gambling was not taxed nor the actual revenues regulated in any way. As a result, States will only receive five points for allowing this form of gambling, but there will be no revenue/resident adjustments to scores.

Pari-Mutuel

This is generally applied to a form of betting in which a house takes the cut of the action and then distributes the remainder according to the Odds of an event occurring. The simplest form is horse racing in which the House takes some juice and the winners are paid out accordingly.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, some states actually permit pari-mutuel wagering but do not permit there to be any racetracks of any kind.

Only eleven of fifty states do not have some form of legalized pari-mutuel gambling, therefore, we will assign a basis of ten points and determine the rest as we will with the Charitable Gambling question, in terms of added points.

NOTE: After researching fifteen states, Connecticut has been the only one with pari-mutuel gambling that did not also have racetracks, therefore, only revenues for racetracks will be considered as offering additional points henceforward and revenues derived from pari-mutuel racing (in states with no tracks) may be mentioned, but will not be considered for additional points.

Lotteries

State Lotteries are an absolute cash cow that have occasionally been called, 'A tax on the poor,' or alternatively, 'A tax on the stupid.' This is a tremendous source of revenue for the vast majority of States and the actual implementation of a State Lottery is a rather simple process with the only complicated component at all being the Distribution.

In some States, such as West Virginia, the State Lottery might also oversee Limited Lottery facilities in which a small number of slot/keno/video poker machines may be operated and the revenues from which the State takes a significant cut.

Initially, I had some trouble deciding whether to put such revenues into the realm of casino revenues or lottery revenues, but in the end, Diplomacy wins and I decided to let each State decide for itself. I will construe these revenues in whatever manner the respective State construes them, however, if any of these states do not have legalized commercial casinos, then these revenues will be construed as lottery revenues for obvious reasons.

Only six States do not have a State Lottery, and interestingly enough, two of them are known to be big casino states, Nevada is obviously the biggest casino state and then the other one with no state lottery is Mississippi. Perhaps those states do not want to be seen as competing with the casinos, it's hard to say.

In any event, we are going to start Lottery States with a base of five points and we will use the system mentioned in the previous entries to allocate additional points.

Commercial Casinos

Everyone knows what a casino is, or should if you are even bothering to read this page, so I am not going to get into the definition of a casino.

The one thing that I will stipulate is that there is a difference between commercial casinos and tribal casinos for these purposes.

Also, according to the Wikipedia page, California does not have any commercial casinos, however, I tend to disagree with that assertion. I am going to construe California Card Rooms as casinos because they offer all of the (physical) card games that would be found in other casinos, and even some games (example: Craps) in which cards are used to replace the implements with which those games are played. I would simply say that California does not have any legalized, regulated and commercial slot machines.

Some may disagree and contend that the card rooms are not, in fact, casinos. However, if they were not, then how could we effectively categorize them?

Due to the fact that Commercial Casinos do not exist in more than half of the States, we are going to award twenty-five points for having commercial casinos and distribute additional points in two different ways:

1.) Gambling Revenues per Person

-This is the method previously discussed.

And:

2.) Gambling Locations per Thousand People

It does what it says on the box, how many places are there to gamble for every one thousand residents of a given state?

Tribal Casinos

It is a casino, only it is certainly owned and sometimes operated by a Native American tribe of one kind or another on land that they own. The tribe usually also has jurisdiction over the gambling activities that take place at this location, and sometimes, they do not answer to any authority higher than their own for any reason whatsoever.

In most cases, there exists a Gambling Compact with the State in which the casino is located that stipulates, among other things, if and how much revenue the State receives from the tribal casino operations.

While slightly more than half the states have a legalized form of Tribal Gambling, the State does not necessarily regulate those activities in any meaningful way, and moreover, many of the States with legalized Tribal Gambling ALSO have legalized and regulated Commercial Casinos.

For those reasons, I am only going to award a Base of ten points for Tribal Gambling and will award additional points based on the aforementioned criteria to the best extent that I can.

Racetracks

Finally, we have Racetracks which are legal in many States in which casinos are not. However, there are some States that have racetracks despite the fact that casinos are illegal in those States.

Racetracks are also going to be somewhat complicated by the fact that the revenues generated therefrom are occasionally indistinguishable from casino revenues. For those reasons, I am hesitant to assign too many Base Points for having racetracks and, as a result, am allocating ten Base Points for Race Tracks much as I did for legal pari-mutuel wagering.

We will make allocations for revenues for added points in the same manner as we do other areas, provided such numbers are available. We will also allocate points separately for the number of racetracks there are in a state per thousand residents.

Online Gambling

It is difficult to gauge Online Gambling on a revenue basis because it is difficult to come up with revenue numbers for the States in which Online Gambling is not expressly legalized and regulated. Therefore, we are going to use my previous work on the status of Online Gambling on a state-by-state basis.

To determine point allocations in this regard. For States that do have expressly legalized and regulated Online Gambling, any such revenues that can be determined shall be construed as casino revenues (in general) and points shall be allocated on the following basis:

• Expressly Legal: +5
• Ambiguous: 0
• Probably Illegal: -2.5
• Expressly Illegal: -5

Defense of Method

Some might argue that casinos are going to naturally generate more revenue than racetracks, and therefore, should be considered as being more, 'Gambling-Friendly,' than a State that has racetracks. What I would encourage is to recall that a State can, and in some cases do, have both forms of gambling. Furthermore, a state that has casinos, but not racetracks (25 basis points and ten basis points, respectively) starts off with a fifteen point advantage over states that have racetracks, but not casinos.

Another potential problem for a state such as Nevada is that they do not allow for Lottery or for Racetracks, however, I think that the very nature of Nevada as THE casino state shall offset that fact rather nicely. Besides that, Nevada still starts off with a ten point advantage built-in over a state that allows State Lottery and Racetracks, but not casinos.

Finally, when it comes to Population data I need an, 'All things equal,' basis in this regard, therefore, while it may not strictly be the most accurate means on a state-by-state basis; it seems the fairest (Universally speaking) to use the 2010 Census Data for State populations.

With that out of the way, let's get down to business!

Ultimately, we are going to use the combined revenues of Lotteries, Commercial Casinos and Tribal Casinos to determine additions to the Base Points to see what states have the most gambling per resident from these sources.

Alabama:

The State of Alabama allows for the following forms of gambling:

• Charitable
• Pari-Mutuel
• Tribal

Therefore, the State of Alabama shall start off with 25 Base Points with a penalty of 2.5 Base Points for being ambiguous as to whether or not Online Gambling is illegal. As a result, Alabama starts off with 22.5 Base Points.

Furthermore, as recently as 2013, the Attorney General for the State of Alabama filed a lawsuit against the Poarch Band for running Class III machines (allegedly) as opposed to Class II machines. This lawsuit was defeated soundly in 2014 when it was determined that the State of Alabama had no legal regulatory powers on Indian land.

For that reason, it can reasonably be concluded that the State of Alabama essentially only, 'Allows,' Tribal Casinos begrudgingly, and as a result, I am subtracting the ten Base Points that they received for having Tribal Casinos which thereby reduces Alabama's Base Score to 12.5. Obviously, we will now also not be taking the revenues derived from Tribal Gambling into consideration at all.

In those counties in which Charitable Bingo games are legal in the State of Alabama (counties have the option of effectively making them illegal) the State does not directly oversee or regulate the terms of the Bingo Halls as each specific regulatory framework is left up to the specific county. Therefore, the State does not take any part of the gambling revenues whatsoever.

Also, the Wikipedia Page (as of the time of this writing) is incorrect, as the State of Alabama does have racetracks in addition to simulcast wagering.

This website is just one example of one of their tracks, so Alabama ultimately ends up with 22.5 points for:

• Charitable: 5
• Pari-Mutuel: 10
• Racetracks: 10
• Online: -2.5

• ---

  Total: 22.5

With respect to the Regulation of pari-mutuel betting locations, the State of Alabama also leaves that to the counties in which such locations are located and upon whom it is incumbent to create a Racing Commission. At this time, there are four such Commissions and four such racetracks and/or locations.

Unfortunately, no determination can be made at this time for the total revenues that are generated by these locations. Therefore, we are going to have a special category for Racetracks in which we will rank the States by how many tracks there are per 1,000 citizens. As of the 2010 Census, the population of Alabama was a rounded 4.78 million and there were four race tracks/pari-mutuel locations. As a result, there are 0.000837 locations (again, rounded) for every 1,000 citizens.

Also, since these decisions are left up to the Counties with some forms of gambling, and given their actions with respect to the Indian Casinos, Alabama will be considered as losing all ties with other States. I think it is fair to suggest that Alabama, as a whole, is not gambling-happy at all, but rather simply tolerates some forms of gambling and allocates responsibility for the oversight thereof to the counties.

Alaska:

In terms of Base Points, Alaska allows for the following types of gambling:

• Charitable
• Tribal

The result of this is 15 points, however, I had previously determined that Online Gambling is, 'Probably Illegal,' in the State of Alaska, but the matter is ambiguous enough that we are only going to subtract 2.5 Points and give them a score of 12.5 Base Points.

In the State of Alaska, a 1% fee is remitted to the Tax Division on Charitable Gambling proceeds and, 'Monte Carlo,' nights are expressly illegal.

Furthermore, Alaska also authorizes, 'Distributors,' to sell, 'Pull Tabs,' but Alaska only takes fees of 3% of all of those revenues, so I am not going to construe that as a State Lottery.

Furthermore, that 1% tax is only collected on all Charitable Gambling Revenues, per organization, in the event that those gambling revenues exceed $20,000. The license fees for the permits only range from $20-$100.

Gambling revenues in the State of Alaska via these sources have been largely steady.

We see that $2,082,492.96 was generated from taxes on Pull Tabs, since that represents 3% of all Pull Tab sales, that means that there was $69,416,432 in total Pull Tab revenues in the State of Alaska.

Net proceeds (the 1% fee on all revenues of an organization in excess of $20,000) accounted for $385,936.76 in State Tax revenues, which means that Gross Revenues in this area were $38,593,676 (not including the first $20,000, or less, for those licensees that had less than $20,000 in charitable gambling revenues).

Because it is so difficult to determine how much the permit-holders failing to hit $20,000 in revenues actually made, we are only going to count known revenues which resulted in tax receipts. Therefore, the total contribution from Charitable Gambling in the State of Alaska we determine that approximately $108,010,108 in Gambling Revenues occurred.

Based on Alaska's 2010 Census Population of 710,231, the revenue per citizen in this regard comes out to $152.08/resident of Alaska.

Secondly, Alaska's Tribal Gaming is not a, 'Casino,' as one would normally think of a casino, most Tribal Gaming is just in the form of Bingo Halls. In fact, the MIC Gaming Hall is the only, 'Casino,' in the State of Alaska to have any machines whatsoever (none of them have Table Games) and MIC, in fact, has less than 100 Class II devices.

While this decision is somewhat arbitrary, in my opinion, the State of Tribal Gaming in Alaska is so weak that I'm not going to even construe them as having any Tribal Casinos. Therefore, Alaska loses all Ten Base Points for Tribal Casinos which reduces the Base Score of Alaska to 2.5.

• Charitable Gaming: 5 Points
• Online: Gaming: -2.5 Points

• ---

  Total: 2.5 Base Points

Arizona:

On the face of it, Arizona starts out with the following forms of gambling:

• Charitable
• Pari-Mutuel
• Lottery
• Tribal

Therefore, Arizona starts out with 30 Base Points in this regard. However, based on the wording of their statutes, I have determined that Internet Gambling is, 'Almost Definitely Illegal,' in the State of Arizona, which reduces them by five points down to 25 Base Points.

In terms of charitable gambling, the State of Arizona has lengthy statutes pursuant to the regulation thereof and the statutes allow for both raffles and charitable Bingo.

Despite the lengthiness of the statutes, it seems that Bingo Halls are licensed by either the counties or towns directly, and if my understanding of the statutes is correct, it does not appear that the state garners any revenues directly from the charitable gambling, though they do proscribe the percentages that the local bodies can take in taxes.

While the regulation is at the local level, it seems that all Bingo taxes collected (Raffles are not taxed) are deposited into the State's General Fund, see Page 87 of this report.

One confusing aspect of this is that there are three tax tiers for Bingo, so the tax amounts can range from 2.5% (less than $15,600 in gross receipts) to 1.5% ($15,601-$300,000 in gross receipts) and 2% ($300,001+ in gross receipts). Unfortunately, this report does not break down what of the $482,440 in direct tax proceeds came from where, so it seems prudent just to call it 2%.

The result is total Bingo revenues of $24,122,000 while raffle revenues are, unfortunately, unknown. The population of Arizona as of 2010 was 6,392,017, so the revenues from this source amount to a small $3.77/person.

While this may seem like a paltry amount, let us not forget that Arizona does have three other forms of gambling.

We have to get into some footnotes to get an idea of the total revenue for the Arizona State Lottery.

On the first page of this report, on the fifth footnote, we see that 6.7% of lottery revenues go towards retailer commissions. The most recent data also seems to only include the Fiscal Year 2014 numbers, so if $47,598,200 went to retailer commissions, then $710,420,895 in tickets were sold. Furthermore, 20% of Tab Ticket sales (allowed to be sold for charitable organizations) goes to the Charitable Commissions line item which was $865,300, meaning such sales were $4,326,500. With exception to Tab Tickets, everything else fell under the purview of the first number.

As a result, we see that Arizonans spent about $714,747,395 in FY 2014 on total State Lottery products. The population of the State in 2010 was 6,392,017, so we end up with about $111.82/resident for Lottery Sales. Based on a 60% return, this would come out to $44.73/resident.

This leaves Pari-Mutuel betting and Indian Casinos which are, in fact, proper casinos. Fortunately, this is easy because Arizona has a Department of Racing, and on Page 14 of this report.

It is flatly stated that $164,340,189 was the total pari-mutuel handle for the year 2015, based on 2010 Census Data, that is $25.71/resident.

Arizona also has live race handle, apparently, which means that there must be live race tracks such as the Turf Paradise Race Course, which makes the Wikipedia page wrong on that and gives Arizona another ten Base Points bringing them up to 35 Base Points.

The new Base Points score for Arizona is:

• Charitable: +5
• Pari-Mutuel: +10
• Lottery: +5
• Tribal: +10
• Online: -5
• Race Track: +10

• ---

  Total: +35

Sloppy Wikipedia Editors!

Finally, we take a look at Tribal Casinos. The revenues for 2014 were readily available, and the tribes did $1,820,000,000 in revenues which represents $284.73/resident.

Even without state regulated and licensed Commercial Casinos, and even though Online Gaming seems to be all but expressly forbidden, Arizona is likely to be one of the more gambling-friendly states of the fifty given these revenue numbers.

Arkansas:

Arkansas is undoubtedly one of the more gambling-friendly Southern States. According to Wikipedia, they have every form of gambling except Commercial Casinos and Tribal Casinos, but that's not even necessarily true. They have two locations that have Slot Machines, except the State insists on referring to them as, 'Electronic Games of Skill,' but I am going to construe them as Commercial Casinos, they certainly have the revenue to back it up.

They might also have a Tribal Casino soon, but one of the Racetracks is doing everything they can to prevent that.

• Charitable
• Pari-Mutuel
• Lottery
• Commercial
• Racetracks

Therefore, Arkansas starts out with 55 Basis Points on my ranking system. However, Online Gambling, based on the wording of their codes, is patently illegal, so they lose 5 points for that and have 50 Basis Points.

Arkansas Charitable Gambling law allows for both Raffles and Bingo and Arkansas actually taxes the distributors of the cards an Excise Tax of 0.3 cents per Bingo Card. According to their most recent report, such taxes generated $183,541.18 in revenues which means that 61,180,393 Bingo Cards were distributed in that ten month period, we can multiply that by 6/5 to arrive at an estimated 73,416,472 Bingo Cards distributed in the State over the last year.

Unfortunately, that doesn't tell us anything about how much the average Bingo card in the State actually costs for the player, so it is actually difficult to say what the total revenues of charitable gambling actually are.

With respect to Racing revenues, Arkansas generated, shows that 2.6 million in tax revenues came from racing in the last twelve months. The law states that only 1% of Simulcast revenues are to be taxed, but that offers little guidance as 7% of the Live Wager revenue is taxed and the tax revenue breakdown doesn't say how much of the taxes came from what source.

Fortunately, things are a little more clear when it comes to what we will call (even though Arkansas doesn't) casino gambling. The State has two locations (both of them also race tracks) that offer what the State terms, 'Electronic Games of Skill,' where same are taxed at a rate of 18% of net revenues. The State has received $55,100,000 in taxes from that source over the last twelve months which means there have been $306,111,111.11 in revenues from that source, The population of Arkansas was 2,915,918 in 2010, so we will construe that as $104.98 in revenue from that source...which we are calling Commercial Casinos.

The State's two race tracks are also the only locations for pari-mutuel wagering, so that is also included, but we cannot be sure of the total revenue that produces.

The State's Lottery Revenue is pretty direct.

They had $409,159,192 in sales for the 2015 Fiscal Year, which represents $140.32 in lottery sales per resident. Based on a 60% return, that still comes out to $56.13/resident.

NOTE: Arkansas shall lose all Base Point ties with other States because of their insistence that slot machines at the Tribal Casinos are, 'Electronic Games of Skill,' and because they do not allow Table Games.

California:

California, for one thing, has Horse Racing even though the Wikipedia page seems to think that they do not have race tracks.

I also keep going back and forth on whether or not to construe California as having Commercial Casinos because they have card rooms which can have all of the Live Table games, (or versions of them that use cards) but they cannot have any machines, which tend to be the #1 source of revenue for most Land Casinos.

As a result, I have decided to give California 12.5 Points f(half) for Commercial Casinos because that seems to be the only fair answer. Furthermore, they will also not be able to use revenue per resident to increase that score.

• Charitable: 5
• Pari-Mutuel: 10
• Lottery: 5
• Commercial: 12.5
• Tribal: 10
• Race Tracks: 10

Therefore, they start with 52.5 Base Points and do not lose any Online Gambling points because, while the State has not legalized Online Gambling, Online Gambling cannot be construed as illegal for players on the State level.

We will start with Charitable Gambling, California appears to allow for Bingo and Raffles as well as a charitable organization allowed to have one, 'Casino night,' per year while a physical location may host up to four casino nights per year. However, the State does not appear to take any revenues on a percentage basis, so there is no way to figure out what the total revenues are.

Page 26 of this racing report in California shows the revenues for the 2014-2015 Fiscal Year in terms of total handle and payouts:

If we subtract the payouts from the handle, then we are left with $187,727,063 in racing revenues which include Pari-Mutuel and Live track betting alike. The population was 37,253,956 in 2010, so we can estimate this at $5.04/resident in revenue from these sources. We are looking at the handle, though, and that was $86.31/resident.

That brings us to the lottery, and the Sacramento Bee reports that California did 5.5 billion in lottery sales for the 2014-2015 Fiscal Year.

Which would represent $147.64/resident is sales for that period based on 2010 Census Data. At a 40% hold, that would be $59.01/resident.

Again, we are not taking Commercial Casino revenues into consideration because the, 'Card Rooms,' that fall under the direct jurisdiction of the State are not permitted to have any slot machines, therefore, they only get half credit for having casinos.

According to the Press Democrat, for the year of 2014, Indian Casino revenues in the State of California were 7.6 billion, which represents about $204.01/resident based on the 2010 Census numbers. California receives revenues on a, 'Per-Machine,' basis pursuant to the State/Tribal compacts rather than as a percentage of revenues.

Colorado:

All forms of Gambling are legal in Colorado with exception to Online Gambling, while the penalties are extremely minor for mere players, my conclusion was that Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' so we end up with these scores:

• Charitable: +5
• Pari-Mutuel: +10
• Lottery: +5
• Commercial Casino: +25
• Tribal: +10
• Race Tracks: +10
• Online: -5

• ---

  Total Base Score: 60

Gaming taxes in Colorado are based on adjusted Gross Proceeds and are as follows:

• Charitable Events 3.00%
• $0 - $2 Million 0.25%
• $2 - $5 million 2.00%
• $5 - $8 million 9.00%
• $8 - $10 million 11.00%
• $10 - $13 million 16.00%
• $13+ million 20.00%

This would normally be very difficult to work in reverse to figure it out as it would require determining what the revenues were for each individual casino, (which the State of Colorado, by law, does not publish) fortunately, the State of Colorado does publish overall revenue numbers for slots and tables, including those for fiscal year 2015.

Simply go to, 'Previous Fiscal Years,' and Select, '2015,' to see the State numbers and city-by-city for 2015. Colorado casino's took $676,693,408.63 in slots revenue and $89,507,224.60 on the tables for a total of $766,200,633.23 in total gambling revenue. The Population of Colorado for 2010 was 5,029,196, which results in $152.35/person in overall casino revenues.

If you're interested in the revenues for each individual city and/or different Table Games or Slot Denominations, those are also available on that page, both annual and month-by-month. I'm not interested in that for the tie being, so it is time to move on to lottery revenues:

I'm really starting to love the State of Colorado because of how easy their reports are to find! Page 22, $538,000,000 in lottery sales, which is $106.98/person. These sales are led by scratch-offs with the second-highest revenue producer, Powerball, only accounting for 19.09% of the sales that Scratchers do. If we assume a hold of 40%, then we arrive at $64.19/loss per person.

With respect to the Ponies and Greyhound Live Racing and Simulcasting, which covers both pari-mutuel and live racing, no revenue figures were available for 2015, but I do have the annual report for 2014.

In terms of overall revenue, the tracks did (see Page 14) $16,083,679, which represents $3.20/person in racing revenues.

While Colorado charges a 3% interest on the Gross Proceeds of Charitable Gambling, (higher than most states) it seems that their publicized reports such as this one.

Do not account for that separately and just lump it in with the other revenues. Unfortunately, the 3% is actually at a higher tax rate than other low-revenue forms of gambling, so the report makes it quite difficult to tell what's what.

Finally, that brings us to Tribal Gaming in the State of Colorado, the State of Colorado has two Indian casinos, but neither of them are required to pay any taxes or to report their revenue to the State. The only rule that the state imposes upon them is that maximum bets (as with state-regulated casinos) are capped at $100. Presumably, all the State cares about is that these casinos do not have an unfair competitive advantage in attracting high-rollers. While quite generous of the State of Colorado, that fact gives us absolutely no opportunity to determine what the revenues of these casinos are.

Connecticut:

The State of Connecticut is one of the more restrictive gambling States at this time and has only Charitable Gaming, Lottery and Tribal Gaming.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5
• Total: 15 Points
• + Pari-Mutuel* 10 Points

• ---

  Total: 25 Points

This makes Connecticut the second most restrictive state with respect to gambling to Alaska, at least, thus far in the alphabet. As we can see from my page linked above, pursuant to my IANAL understanding of the law, Online Gambling is patently illegal in Connecticut., so the state loses five points as a result.

Of course, the Wikipedia page is, again, WRONG! While Connecticut does not have any live racing of any kind, they have multiple simulcast locations (with a scaling, and high, tax structure just based on monies bet) so we add ten points bringing them up to a Base Score of 25. As a result, Connecticut is now less-restrictive than Alabama.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine how much the Simulcasts took in revenue because of this sliding tax scale and the fact that Connecticut only reports how much money goes into the General Fund from this source.

The best we can do is that Connecticut has a report for the Gross Sales of all of these sources (other than Tribal Casinos) through 2011, so we shall use the 2010 numbers in our determination. Racing revenues, of course, have declined substantially in recent years, so these numbers are not ideal, but they're the best we're going to do.

In 2010, the State of Connecticut had total sales of $190,746,664 for Off-Track betting and a population of 3,574,097 for the same year resulting in $53.37/person in Off-Track wagering.

Moving on to the lottery, a revenue source for which sales tend to increase as years go by, Connecticut had $996,846,808 in Lottery Sales in 2010, and as a result, had sales of $278.91/person. Generally speaking, State Lotteries tend to hold roughly 40% of all sales, so we can assume that means Connecticut had actual lottery revenues of about $111.56/person.

Finally, Charitable Gaming came in with $37,948,339 in Gross Sales, but that might actually reflect a lesser amount because Connecticut requires taxes on Bingo, for instance, of 5% after prizes are paid.

However, comparing the two reports, we see that Connecticut ultimately took in revenues for the general fund in 2010 of 2.49% of Gross Sales. What we can be led to believe, then, is that the actual return to player on these charitable games was about 50%, in all, and that Revenues (after paying players) are actually closer to approximately 19 million, or $5.32/person. It's a shame so much money is going to the lottery rather than directly to charities, however, if Texas is any example; charities often do not see much of the actual revenues.

That leaves us with Tribal Gaming, and the State breaks down these reports:

http://www.ct.gov/dcp/lib/dcp/pdf/gaming/fosltweb.pdf
http://www.ct.gov/dcp/lib/dcp/pdf/gaming/mosltweb.pdf

Which results in a total of $267,985,649 in State Contributions to the General Fund derived as a result of the tax on these casinos.

According to this Article, Connecticut receives 25% of the slot machine revenue from its two Tribal Casinos, which are numbers you would expect from a state licensed and regulated commercial casino! However, these numbers are also based on the fact that the tribes in Connecticut enjoy exclusivity.

As a result, we are looking at about $1,071,942,596 in slot revenues between the two casinos for 2015, however, these numbers do not include any Table Games revenue because, apparently, those are not taxed. This value will be a bit understated because of no means to account for Table Games, but it comes out to $299.92/resident in casino slot revenues.

Delaware:

Delaware is one of the most gambling-friendly states in the country as they have every form of gambling with exception to Tribal Gambling. Furthermore, the State of Delaware also has licensed and regulated online gambling sites of its own resulting in a +5 for Online Gambling, one of only a few states to get added points in this regard.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 5 Points

• ---

  Base Score: 60 Points

With respect to Charitable Gambling, Delaware actually has a Board of Charitable Gambling, but the laws themselves are fairly liberal with the only major restriction being that a person may not lose more than $150/day by way of Charitable Gambling.

Delaware does not charge a tax of any kind on Charitable Gambling revenues, instead charging a simple fee of $15, per occasion, that a Charitable Gaming event is going to take place. Even this regulation comes with a caveat: In the event that a Charitable Gaming event will offer no prizes in excess of $5.00, then no license fee is even required.

While these are some friendly laws to the charities trying to raise money, unfortunately, it gives us no insight into what the Charitable Gambling revenues in Delaware might be.

As a result, we will move on to the Lottery. According to this page:

The Lottery generated 202.26 million for the General Fund in Fiscal Year 2015, unfortunately, that does not represent all of the positive revenues of the lottery.

If the breakdown on this page is accurate.

We can surmise that about 65% of the lottery revenues go to players, retailers and agents and then for the lottery to operate. That would mean that roughly 35% of the overall ticket sales essentially go directly to the General Fund for the State. That would mean, in 2015, approximately 577.886 million dollars were made in sales, reflecting about 202.260 million back to the lottery to pay all of the associated people as well as the General Fund.

The population of Delaware was 897,934 in 2010, so each person lost about $225.25 to the Delaware State Lottery.

We can now move on to Commercial Casino revenues, the first thing we have is Table Games revenues for 2015.

There was $52,806,597 in Table Games revenue among the State's three casinos. Delaware also offers a handy little chart on the Distribution of State VLT (Video Lottery Terminal Revenues) on this page.

In sum, the Delaware Lottery saw 349.5 million in revenues from the slots resulting in a total of about 402.3 million in total slot/table revenue which is $448.02/resident based on 2010 population numbers.

Finally, that leads us to pari-mutuel and Live Racing betting, which will be construed as live racing revenue since Delaware has Live Racing. This is actually pretty murky because, as we can see from the above-link, racing purses are subsidized pretty heavily by slot revenues. In other words, much like with Greyhounds in West Virginia, the casinos exist, in part, to keep the horse racing alive in the state of Delaware.

Furthermore, while this page breaks down the handle.

Revenues are not really mentioned, so we are going to chalk them up to unknown.

Florida:

Florida is another example of a gambling-friendly state, in many ways, lacking only in state licensed and regulated commercial casinos. However, the language of the law in my earlier work led me to believe that Online Gambling is, "Patently Illegal," in Florida, so the state will lose five points in that regard:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Base Total: 35 Points

While Florida has an extensive, exhaustive, tedious and laborious list of regulations with respect to charitable gambling, it does not appear that there is any agency in the state whose job it is to specifically enforce said regulations. Furthermore, there do not appear to be any taxes, or even any kind of separate licensing, for a charity to offer certain types of gambling. These laws are definitely friendly, however, they make adjusting for revenue impossible to determine.

That takes us to Pari-Mutuel and Racetrack Wagering, the revenues therefrom to be simply construed as Racetrack wagering. These numbers represent total handle, but do not stipulate the revenues therefrom.

However, 20% is usually a pretty safe baseline amount, so we shall assume that about $155,870,897 was actually lost by the bettors in the realm of horse betting. Given the population of 18,801,310, this represents $8.29/resident, which is hardly surprising given the weather and the ability of the dogs and horses to race more of the year.

Florida actually reports a lower hold than that in their card room report, which includes Jai-Alai revenues.

And results in $135,888,902 in revenues for that year which is $7.23/resident, so we will use that number.

The Division of Pari-Mutuel Racing also handles slot revenue tracking for the Indian Casinos as can be shown here.

And has a sum of $521,670,974 in slot revenue, which represents $27.75/resident, so tribal casinos are not an especially popular form of gambling in Florida. Besides that, if Free Play is considered (Promotional) the holds are a somewhat low 6.53% overall.

Finally, proving again that people love to lose, Florida managed to amass 5.6 billion dollars in sales on its Lottery in 2015 according to the, 'Achievement Report,'.

We will call that 2.24 billion in revenues (based on a 60% return) and that results in the lottery raking in $148.93/resident in revenues.

Georgia:

According to the Wikipedia page, Georgia only allows for a Lottery as well as Charitable Gambling. As recently as January of this year, the prospect of Live Tracks and Simulcast has been discussed in the Georgia Legislature, but alas, both forms of gambling remain illegal.

Furthermore, any form of casino is illegal in Georgia, though there are a couple of cruise lines that dock in Georgia and gambling is permitted on their cruises given that the waters are outside of the state's jurisdiction.

Furthermore, I determined that, based on how I would interpret the laws, Online Gambling in Georgia is, 'Patently Illegal,' which leaves us with:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 5 Base Points

Licenses for Charitable Bingo cost $100 and application for same must be made to the Director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation while raffle licenses may cost up to $100 and application for same is to be made to the County Sheriff. Aside from that, the revenues from Charitable Gambling are not taxed, so it is not possible to determine the revenues.

Georgia seems to have one of the more liberal lotteries which appear to return about 60.65% off all sales proceeds to players overall, compared to the 50% that one would expect from most lotteries. While still an undoubtedly atrocious return, this is better than most state lotteries. With that said, the Georgia Lottery raked in about $1,640,800,000 in 2015.

Against a 2010 Population of 9,687,653 for a total of about $169.37/resident in revenue. The revenue for each person is higher than in most states, but that should come as no surprise given the limited forms of legalized and regulated gambling in the state.

Hawaii:

Here it is in a word: Illegal.

If it is gambling, then it is illegal. That includes online gambling which I rank as, 'Patently Illegal,' so, -5 Points.

Idaho:

According to Wikipedia, Idaho has all forms of gambling except Commercial Casinos and Live Racetracks, but as I am coming to expect, Wikipedia is wrong. While there are only an abyssmal 28 Live Racing days in the state scheduled for this year.

The fact remains that there are live tracks and there are live races, albeit a pathetic number of them. With that said, I did score Idaho as, 'Patently Illegal,' for Online Gambling, so here is what we have:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks (Barely): 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Base Points

Conveniently, we do have the revenue numbers for the Idaho tracks for 2015, almost all of whom operated at a losss and two of the three locations that offered simulcast have now closed, so the 2016 Revenues can be projected to be even lower.

The total in revenues is $11,141,264.63, of course, Les Bois Park just closed in March of this year and that track/simulcast facility was responsible for 87.86% of the State of Idaho's total racing revenue for 2015. As one can probably assume, revenues are going to drop substantially, but even though they were the revenue leader for the state (by a lot) they were operating at a loss. Idaho is adamantly opposed to casino gambling, at least, that which is licensed and regulated through the state and have basically suggested that the horse racing industry will either live or die on its own without being propped up by any form of casino gambling.

Given this development, there is likely to be less than $1.00/resident in racing revenues for 2016 as Les Bois was far and away the leader in all areas of racing revenue in the state. I did want to base my information on 2015 revenues v. 2010 population as practicable, but this information about the state of Horse Racing in Idaho is impossible to ignore.

Charitable Gambling is regulated by the Idaho Lottery and requires a license fee of $100 for the first year and then $100-$300 for every year thereafter based on the previous years' gross receipts. However, there is no tax percentage, so even if I were inclined to continue to try to determine revenues from these sources, there would be no way to estimate it.

Interestingly, the prizes allowed for Bingo are greater than those allowed by raffles and each license holder may only hold up to twelve raffles per year.

That brings us to the annual report for the Idaho Lottery for 2015, in which.

$210,939,431 was announced in 2015 Operating Revenues on Page 26, perhaps unusually, that amount does not actually include prizes paid out which can be found on Page 32 and are $74,170,153 after taking into account prizes paid to players. That actually represents an overall return of 64.84% to players (mostly due to 70%+ scratch-off returns) which is disgusting in any other context, but pretty good for a State Lottery. In any case, the population for 2010 was 1,567,582 and the average loss per person was $47.32, which is pretty low fora State Lottery, but again, it seems to return considerably better than most lotteries. Even with that disparity, however, one is forced to conclude that Idahoans simply gamble less than the denizens of other states.

Unfortunately, there is no way to gauge recent and reliable revenue numbers for the Tribal Casinos because the State of Idaho does not tax them as part of any compact, the reason why is because they do not wish to allow and regulate Class III Gaming.

Illinois:

According to the Wikipedia Page, Illinois appears to allow for all forms of gambling lacking only in the presence of Tribal Casinos, despite at least one recent attempt by a Tribe to get a casino into the state.

From my previous research, I determined that Online Gambling in the State of Illinois is, 'Patently Illegal,' so they will lose five points for that:

Charitable: 5 Points

Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points

Lottery: 5 Points

Commercial: 25 Points

Racetracks: 10 Points

Online: -5 Points

 

---

• Total: 50 Base Points

   

This would put it in a tie with Arkansas for, 'Base Points,' but Arkansas likes to categorize slot machines as, 'Electronic Games of Skill,' and does not allow for Table Games, therefore, as previously decided, Arkansas loses all Base Point ties.

With respect to Charitable Gambling, Illinois offers two types of licenses for Bingo: The first costs $200/year and allows for a weekly Bingo session while the other is a limited license costing $50 and allowing for two Bingo sessions of up to five consecutive days each, licenses are limited to two per year per organization with respect to limited licenses. In addition, Bingo Revenues are taxed at a rate of one-half of one percent.

With respect to casino games on a Charitable Basis, an organization pays a fee of $400 and is allowed to conduct up to four events annually with such license being good for two years. If space to conduct these events is being rented, as opposed to freely provided, then the individual or entity renting such space is required to pay a fee of either $50 or $150 for a license that is good for three years. Once again, net proceeds of Charitable casino-night gambling are taxed at one-half of one percent.

For Pull Tab Games and Jar Games, an entity must pay $500 for an annual license in order to offer such games while a Limited License allowing for two events of up to five consecutive days each is available for $50. The tax is, again, one-half of one percent on all such activities.

Moving on to pari-mutuel and racetrack betting, the State of Illinois has a handy little chart on Page 10 of this pdf.

Page 13 of the pdf actually includes the Hold for each form of gambling, which is what we are particularly interested in for the purposes of this study.

The racing hold was 136 million dollars against a population of 12,830,632, for a total of $10.60 lost per resident.

The lottery hold was 1.118 Billion dollars for a loss of $87.13/resident.

The, 'Riverboat,' and, 'Video Lottery,' hold, where Video Lottery effectively refers to slot parlors will all be translated as casino hold as the VLT's are more closely related to casino gambling than they are to the lottery itself, therefore, the combined hold from those sources is 2.242 Billion or $174.74/resident.

The lottery hold per resident is lower in Illinois than it is for most states with a State Lottery, but that is likely attributable to the plethora of gaming choices available in the state. On a per-resident basis, the combined revenues from all sources are greater than those of most other states which is why my scoring system seeks to use those combined revenues, ultimately, to balance everything out.

Indiana:

The Wikipedia page is correct for the time being, but that may change given the proposed Four Winds Casino to be located in South Bend, Indiana. While negotiations with the locality have concluded, the tribe looking to open the casino must still https://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2016/03/new_four_winds_casino_is_plann.htmlnegotiate a compact with the State of Indiana.

For the time being, however, there are no Tribal Casinos in the State of Indiana, though every other form of gambling exists, much as it does with Illinois. In another similarity to its geographical and alphabetical neighbor, Online Gambling I found to be, 'Patently Illegal,' in the State of Indiana. As a result, Indiana also starts with 50 Base Points:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

In the State of Indiana, Charitable Gaming Licenses come in different types (for different events) and cost $50 each for the initial year while renewal is based on a sliding scale thereafter. The proceeds of charitable gaming are otherwise not taxed. Interestingly enough, Indiana keeps some of the most comprehensive records of charitable gambling activities to be found.

Total receipts were $391,916,128 for the year, however, the total expenses also include prizes rendering the net proceeds $92,202,277.25. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this report (since we are not attempting to do charitable gaming revenues on a State-by-State basis as a result of the lack of reporting in many states) is how many entities actually LOST money on their charitable activities, including a few entities who actually managed to lose money on raffles of all things!

Really, how do you screw up a raffle?

That takes us to pari-mutuel and racing revenue for the state, fortunately, the State of Indiana breaks down all of its sources of tax revenue in its annual report.

The state taxes 0.5% of all monies bet on Simulcast Wagering that go to the state auditor.

The state also taxes 2% or 2.5% of all the daily wagering that takes place at the tracks, with tracks that offer live racing taxed at 2% and 2.5% at all satellite betting facilities.

Unfortunately, the actual revenues are hard to determine based on the information provided due to the different tax rates and the fact that the taxes are based on total amounts wagered

With that, we'll move on to Casino Gambling which I will construe both as Riverboats and Type II License gaming.

Page 12 of this pdf has the casino win for each casino for 2015 and a total.

The total for casino win is 2,221,134,902.92 and if we look at Type II Gaming taxes of $441,400, unfortunately, that is an excise tax and tells us nothing about revenues. With that, we will just take the casino revenues and divide by a population of 6,483,802 for $342.57/person.

That brings us to the annual report for the Indiana Lottery.

The lottery had 1,040,663,874 in total sales and 670,980,026 in payouts for revenues of $369,683,848 which translates to $57.02/person. Much like Illinois, I would attribute this substantial difference compared to other states to the availability of other forms of gambling, specifically, a wide assortment of commercial casinos.

Iowa:

Iowa is probably one of the most gambling-friendly states out there given that it has every type of gambling available on the list. However, based on my interpretation of the laws from my earlier work, I deemed Iowa as, 'Patently Illegal,' when it comes to Online Gambling.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial Casino: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 60 Points

When it comes to Charitable Gambling in Iowa, there does not appear to be a tax on any of the gambling itself, but there are different license fees depending on what sort of gambling you wish to offer, the length for which you will be offering it, and even where such gambling is to be offered:

The law is also quite detailed when it comes to the conduct of Charitable and Social Gambling.

That takes us to the racetrack for which the Iowa Code stipulates taxes of 6% of the Gross Sum Wagered.

Unfortunately, a perusal of the annual report does not make the revenues for 2015 any more clear.

However, what the report does make clear is casino revenues, which were $1,424,351,470 based on Page 18 of the Annual Report. The population in 2010 was 3,046,355, so we are looking at $467.56 in spend, per resident.

According to this report:

The Iowa Lottery did $324,767,416 in total sales for the 2015 Fiscal Year. Flipping to Page 20-21 of that report, we see that the Lottery, as a percentage of Total Sales, spent 5.87% on Operating and Advertising, which is about $19,063,847 and the lottery also transferred $72,365,900 to the General Fund along with $2,151,167 to the Veterans Fund for a total hold of about $93,580,914. That represents revenues of $30.72/resident. Again, with the availability of so many other forms of gambling, this should come as no great surprise.

From what I can tell, it does not appear that the contracts between the Tribes and State of Iowa call for any tax on their revenues.

Kansas:

While Wikipedia credits Kansas for a few different types of gambling, including pari-mutuel wagering, I see no evidence of pari-mutuel wagering presently in the state. It is not that it is illegal in the state, per se, but the only locations were at the horse and greyhound racing tracks which are all presently closed.

With that said, Phil Ruffin did purchase the Woodlands relatively recently and plans to reopen it in the event that he can have slot machines also at the establishment, which would effectively make it a casino, but it has not re-opened yet. Based on 2015, Kansas actively has the following:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• I also determined that Online Gambling is patently illegal in Kansas, so that results in -5 points.

• ---

  Total: 15 Base Points

A brief note on Charitable Gambling is that the State of Kansas does have a fee schedule associated therewith.

However, while the fee schedule is slightly graduated based on gross receipts (sales) there is otherwise no other tax on Charitable Gambling which may include both Raffles and Bingo subject to other restrictions.

Fortunately, the Kansas Lottery site has up-to-date and easily accessible information for Fiscal Year 2015.

To wit, they had 250 million in sales and players were paid at a rate of 57.1% therefore, players lost about $107,250,000. The population of Kansas was 2,853,118 in 2010, so the loss was about $37.59/person.

The only other form of gambling in 2015 was Tribal Gambling:

That's my best source of numbers for Tribal gaming revenues, though they are from 2014, however the total was 352.9 million which represents $123.69/resident.

Kentucky:

Kentucky is a state well-known for its Horse Racing activities, but not at all for its casinos, because it doesn't have any casinos of any kind. However, Kentucky law is interesting because, as I found in my other research, it is, 'Not Illegal,' to participate in Online Gambling as a player. Therefore, no points will be lost there, or gained.

• Chaitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points

• ---

  Total: 30 Base Points

Kentucky takes their Charitable Gambling very seriously and has a separate division for it and proscribes serious penalties for violators of its exhaustive codes. With that, they do not have a flat tax, just licensing fees and they probably make some money on fines, as well, because those seem somewhat easy to come by.

When it comes to racing revenues in the State of Kentucky, for some reason, the 2014 report does not appear on the site of the Racing Commission, so we have to look at the 2014 report. If we go to Page 80 and subtract the total wagered by the total commissions, we arrive at $27,913,473.49. Given the population of 4,339,367, this translates to $6.43/resident in racing revenues.

Moving on to the Kentucky Lottery, this page provides a really simple breakdown.

There were 899.1 million in sales, 62.7% is returned to players, which means the lottery held $335,364,300 or $77.28/resident. The Kentucky Lottery has a higher hold per resident than most, and that can probably be attributed to the absence of other forms of gambling in the state.

Louisiana:

The State of Louisiana is easily one of the most gambling-friendly of the fifty in that it offers all of the major forms of gambling discussed on this page. However, I determined that Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the state, which will cost them five Base Points.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

---

• Total: 60 Base Points

In terms of Base Points, Louisiana is one of the most friendly states in the U.S. coming in with sixty points and putting it in a four-way tie with Colorado, Delaware and Iowa in Base Points thus far.

In terms of Charitable Gambling, the state issues licenses at varying costs and also imposes fees such as 3% on Pull Tab tickets, however, some forms of Charitable Gambling do not call for additional fees.

This report shows that racing handle is down over 5% for the first nine months of this Fiscal Year compared to last year, but it does not offer any guidance on what track commissions/holds are.

Of course, that is why we are no longer trying to track that for the purposes of this page, so let's move on to the Lottery.

The best information I can find on Lottery Revenues for the State of Louisiana comes from this Quarterly Report for the quarter ended December 2015.

This information contains data for the first half of the current fiscal year, so we will simply double the sales numbers and take out the return to player of a paltry 53.12%. Based on the information available, we can project revenues of $451,766,518 for the current fiscal year which represents total revenues of $211,788,143.60 coming out at a population of 4,533,372 to $46.72/resident. As with a few other states, I would attribute this low spend per resident to the other forms of gambling that are available, and it would be even lower if the returns-to-player were not disgustingly low...even by the standards of a State Lottery.

We are now going to move on to Casino revenues which are broken down by type with different reports. The reports can be found here.

And we will be using the June 2015 reports as they contain the data for the most recent entire fiscal year.

The total revenues from Video Poker were $48,600,636, Land-Based Casino revenue, which only includes Harrah's New Orleans, was $317,425,803 for that year, Riverboat revenues were $1,887,514,619 and Slots at the Track Revenues were $380,051,515 resulting in a total of $2,633,592,573 in revenues from all sources, or $580.93/resident.

Finally, that brings us to Tribal Gaming in the State of Louisiana. Whatever the Tribal Compacts, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, at least as far as this report appears, does not necessarily track the revenues of all the Tribal Casinos:

As a result, the Tribal Casino revenues will be construed as, 'Unknown.'

Maine:

The State of Maine, according to the Wikipedia Page, has every form of gambling with exception to both Commercial and Tribal Casinos, but the Wikipedia Page is wrong in this regard as Maine is home to the Oxford Casino and Hollywood Casino and Raceway.

The State is also home to the tribal Penobscot High Stakes Bingo, however, this location does not have any machines or Tables, so will not be construed as a casino.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 0

• ---

  Total: 55 Base Points

While Online Gambling is not expressly legalized, licensed and regulated in the State, my determination based on state law is that it is not illegal to be a mere player.

The State of Maine has 53 Pages of Regulations related to Charitable Gambling and proscribes a variety of fees in order to be licensed to conduct such gambling, which can be found on Page 8(updated link to 2020 Handbook). Beyond that, there do not appear to be any taxes associated with revenues derived from charitable gambling.

While it ignores other expenses, the best we can do on the Maine Lottery is that 54 million was transferred to the State's General Fund and 16.5 million was paid in Commissions and Bonuses to retailers in 2015. That comes out to 70.5 million which, unfortunately, ignores any other expenses, but hopefully, they all come from the General Fund which reported 20 million in lottery-related costs in this report.

Based on a population of 1,328,361, this comes out to $53.07/resident based on 2010 Census Data, if nothing else, this is at least reasonable given our knowledge of more complete numbers from other states.

The Excel Spreadsheet for 2015 that can be found here.

Shows $431,081,412 in Gross Revenues for the casinos in the year of 2015. and that comes out to $324.52/resident.

Maryland:

The State of Maryland has all of the aforementioned forms of gambling with exception to Indian Casinos, and also I have ranked Online Gambling as, 'Patently Illegal,' pursuant to my reading of state laws:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 50 Points

The regulation of Charitable Gambling is largely left up to the Cities and Counties in the State of Maryland, so if you would like information on that, then you could visit this page.

Maryland is one of the leading states for horse racing, including the fact that it is home to the Preakness, but again, the ability to generate data is too inconsistent from state to state, so the revenues from this source do not add to the base points and are irrelevant.

That brings us to the casinos in Maryland, and fortunately, they have compiled their data on a monthly basis giving us the ability to look at the last ten months and then multiply by 12/10 to determine projections for the year.

Maryland generated $615,372,354 in revenues on VLT's over a ten-month period as well as $330,883,466 on the tables for total of $946,255,820 which we then multiply by 12/10 to arrive at a projection of $1,135,506,984 which, based on a 2010 Population of 5,773,552 equates to $196.67/resident.

The Maryland Lottery did 1.762 billion in sales and paid out 1.049 billion in prizes for overall revenues of 713 million which represents $123.49/resident, which is higher than most states.

Massachusetts:

The full casinos in the State of Massachusetts, as far as Commercial Casinos are concerned, have yet to open. In the meantime, the Plainridge Park Casino was awarded a license to operate a slot parlor owned and run by Penn National Gaming and that opened in June of 2015. As a result, revenues for future years will be difficult to infer, but we can simply double the 2015 numbers to get an idea of what the revenues will be for 2016 as there will only be one commercial casino open in the state this year.

Ultimately, the state allows for all forms of gambling with exception to Online Gambling which I earlier determined is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the state.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: --5 Points

• ---

  Total: 60 Points

Charitable Gambling is subject to a tax of either 5% or 10% depending on type, the types allowed are Beano (Bingo), Raffles, Pull-Tabs and Bazaars with the Pull-Tabs being taxed at 10% of the total amount wagered.

It's tough to make anything out of the handle which is the only number I can find for total race wagering in the state, obviously that has nothing to do with actual tracks revenues (Commissions) and due to difficulties ascertaining same in previous states, we are not changing base scores based on that, anyway.

That will then take us to the State Lottery revenues for Fiscal Year 2015, which can be found.

If we subtract the prizes from the sales, then we arrive at $1,373,184,000 in State Lottery revenues, based on the 2010 Population of 6,547,629, this represents $209.72/person on lottery gross revenues. This huge number might have something to do with the lack of any proper casinos in the State, thus far, and the fact that the State's one slot parlor was only open half of last year and almost not at all during the Fiscal Year reported, but we shall see as more of the Massachusetts casinos open their doors.

Actually, we do have numbers for the last ten months at Plainridge Park Casino for slot revenues.

Therefore, we will simply take these amounts and subtract out the June numbers then multiply by 12/10 to get an approximation of a full year's worth of data. The result is $160,915,307 which may seem low, but actually takes into account the inordinately high revenues that the Plainridge Casino got during its grand opening in the last week of June 2015. The result, based on 2010 Population data, is $24.58 in spend, per person. While this may seem like an exceptionally low number, one must take into account that it is only one slot parlor and it is competing with Indian Casinos as well as casinos in surrounding states.

Finally, while the Wikipedia page has indicated that Tribal Casinos do exist in the State of Massachusetts, none of them (and only one has been approved thus far) have actually opened yet, so I am removing ten points from the Massachusetts Base Score and reducing same to 50 Points.

Michigan:

The State of Michigan is one of the least-restrictive states with respect to gambling out of the fifty, while I ranked Online Gambling as, 'Patently Illegal,' in the State, all other forms of gambling for these purposes exist within the state, thus, the scores are as follows:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 60 Points

For Michigan, we'll start out with Tribal Gambling in which 2% of Net Revenues must be paid to localities or combined jurisdictions, in 2015, according to this report.

$28,603,989.52 was paid out to said localities which means that the revenues were about $1,430,199,476 which, based on the 2010 Population of 9,883,640 comes out to $144.70/resident.

Charitable Gaming is regulated by the Division of Charitable Gaming which is required to be self-supporting, as a result, they charge licensing fees and even sell tickets themselves in order to generate revenues. They also do better than most states at tracking revenues and show that, for Fiscal Year 2015, the revenues after prizes were paid out were $89,712,325.

Once again, suffice it to say that Michigan has racetracks and simulcast wagering, for reasons previously stated, such activities shall not add to the base points due to the difficulty in determining actual revenues after prizes are paid out from state to state.

With that, we will move on to Commercial Casino Revenues which are brought entirely by the three commercial casinos in Detroit and according to the 2015 report.

The total revenue for that year was $1,376,408,436.95 which represents revenues of $139.26/resident. An interesting aspect of this, probably due to how many of them there are compared to the three Detroit Casinos, is that Tribal Casino revenues per Michigan resident slightly exceed those of licensed and state-regulated commercial casinos.

According to Page 30 of this pdf.

The State Lottery had Operating Revenues of $2,785,100,000 against payouts of $1,665,5000,000 in payouts that makes the lottery hold slightly in excess of 40% at $1,119,600,000 which reflects an average loss of $113.28/resident. Again, these revenues are difficult to explain in a state with so many other forms of gambling available legally.

Minnesota:

Minnesota is a bit of a strange state in this regard because Canterbury Park, the state's horse racing track, is actually permitted to offer Poker and certain table games. However, because slot machines are the staple of a casino, we are going to agree with Wikipedia and classify Minnesota as not having Commercial Casinos. This may seem strange given the treatment of Calon this page, but the California card rooms are too widespread to ignore, therefore, California was awarded 25 base Points for casinos.

I also ranked Minnesota as, 'Probably Legal,' with respect to Online Gambling, so the State generates 0 points in that regard.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 0 Points

• ---

  Total: 40 Base Points

The State of Minnesota has exhaustive laws concerning the conduct of Non-Profit Gambling which is the entire job of the Minnesota Gambling Control Board. In addition to other types of licenses and fees, according to this report, they also tax at a rate of 0.1% of all Gross Receipts.

Which would seem to indicate that there was about 1.337 Billion dollars in Gross Gambling receipts, of course, that has nothing to do with the holds or revenues after prizes had actually been paid out.

However, moving to Page 5, we see that the State shows 1.351 billion in Gross Receipts and after the payouts are considered, we are left with $229,295,000 in revenues mostly courtesy of pull tabs.

The laws regarding the conducting of Charitable Gaming are exhaustive in the state, but if you really want to look into it, then you should start with the Minnesota Gambling Control Board site.

Again, we are not going to concern ourselves with racing revenues.

That brings us to the lottery, according to this lovely report on Page 6.

The lottery saw 546.9 million in sales and paid 335.2 million in prizes, for a 61.29% Return to Player. The result is $211,700,000 in revenues against a population of 5,303,925 for a loss of $39.91/resident. This is among the lowest of any state, and the residents actually seem more interested in Charitable Gambling rather than the lottery, as well they should, given that Charitable Gambling comes in at a return to player of 83.03%, which is much more tolerable...but still not good. Even with these improved returns, Charitable Gambling still performed better than the lottery on revenue after payouts were made.

Unfortunately, the State of Minnesota does not appear to impose any direct fees on the Tribal Casinos, so it will not be possible to determine those revenues and they will be categorized as, 'Unknown.'

Mississippi:

The State of Mississippi keeps trying to establish a lottery with the House voting on it twice on March 30, 2016, of this year, but alas, Mississippi is one of the few states with no lottery whatsoever. Furthermore, there are also no race tracks or locations for simulcast wagering in Mississippi which may seem strange for a state that houses both Commercial and Tribal casinos. Aside from that, Charitable Gambling is allowed, and my earlier work on the legality of Online Gambling found it to be, 'Patently Illegal.'

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Base Points

In addition to a $50 License Fee, there are different fees prescribed in the state, on a percentage basis, based mostly upon what sort of gambling is being conducted and the amounts therefore on Charitable Gambling.

Page 9 of the Mississippi Gambling and Hospitality Association indicates that 2.07 Billion in gambling revenues were generated by the licensed commercial casinos in the State during 2014, based on the population of 2,967,297 in 2010 we get revenues of $697.60/resident for the State for that year. Of course, out-of-state players make up a huge portion of this money, but it still demonstrates how important the industry is to the state.

The Tribal Casinos do not report their winnings to the State of Mississippi.

Missouri:

According to the Wikipedia page, Missouri has all of the forms of gambling with exceptions of Racing and Pari-Mutuel, I have confirmed that this information is effectively correct, even though both forms of gambling are actually legal in the state...none are actually operating. From my earlier research, I also determined that any form of gambling other than those specifically authorized by the state is a Misdemeanor, which makes Online Gambling patently illegal.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 40 Base Points

The brunt of the Charitable Gaming Taxes in the State of Missouri are paid by the suppliers while the organizations typically just pay license fees:

With respect to the Missouri Lottery, Page 22 of the 2015 Fiscal Year Annual Report.

Clearly shows the totals in ticket sales and prize payouts which result in a total revenue (after prizes) of $371,925,905 which means the lottery held 32.99% (fairly low by lottery standards) and given the population of 5,988,927, the loss is about $62.10/resident.

With respect to Commercial Casino revenue, all it takes is one PDF for June 2015, the last reporting period of that particular fiscal year.

We see that the State won $1,466,074,588 on the slots that year and $216,010,085 on the Tables for a combined $1682,084,673 in revenue which translates to $280.87/resident.

Missouri only has one Indian Casino, The Indigo Sky Casino, and revenue numbers are not available as far as I have looked.

Montana:

According to the Wikipedia page, Montana does not have Commercial Casinos. Again, we find ourselves in a bit of a sticky situation with respect to how to treat Montana because they allow what they refer to as, 'Casinos,' to have up to 20 Video Games as well as Bingo.

Ultimately, I am going to agree with the collective assertion of the Wikipedia editors that Montana effectively does not have Commercial Casinos and will file any revenues derived from these so-called, 'Casinos,' as Lottery Revenues.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 25 Base Points

The laws of the state have made it pretty explicit that Internet gambling is illegal, so there is nothing meriting consideration in the decision to subtract five base points.

With respect to these, 'Casinos,' Montana takes 15% of the Gross Revenues from the machines in addition to some other fees. While the Gambling Control Divisions Quarterly Reports live a bit to be desired, they will suffice for these purposes.

The result is 59.67 million for Fiscal Year 2015 in tax revenues which represents 397.8 million in revenues for the casinos. We now have to see how that number combines with Montana Lottery Revenues.

Page 15 of the Montana Lottery Annual Report for 2015 shows the total game sales which can then have the prize payouts subtracted from them in order to determine overall revenues.

The result is a hold of $23,067,439 which is a player return of 55.91%, the combined revenues from these two sources are about 420.87 million against a population of 989,415 in 2010 which results in $425.37/resident in revenue.

That leads us to Tribal Casinos, unfortunately, it does not appear as though they report to the state, so their revenues are unknown. The majority of them, however, are located in remote areas and often limited to the same games offered in Montana, 'Casinos,'' that are licensed and regulated by the state.

Montana also has Charitable Gambling with different fees proscribed for different types of licenses and permits:

Nebraska:

According to the Wikipedia page, the State of Nebraska is only lacking in Live Racing as well as Commercial Casinos, while the page may be right on Commercial Casinos, Nebraska actually does have Live Racing, here is the 2016 schedule.

Admittedly, those are a limited number of dates, but there is no question that some Live Racing is taking place in the state.

While on that note, Nebraska taxes the Tracks/Simulcast facilities at 0%, 2.5% or 4% depending on how much is wagered in total with the first 10M not resulting in a tax obligation. Here is a sample of a Nebraska tax form.

With that out of the way, Charitable Gambling is subject to both licensing fees and taxes that vary depending on the type of gambling, for those of you interested in more information in that regard, here is the 2015 Fiscal Year Report from the Department of Revenue Division of Charitable Gambling.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Base Points

With respect to the Nebraska Lottery, we have the 2015 Annual Report.

With the sales and payouts conveniently located on Page 24, and those sales and payouts reflect revenues of $67,539,589 which, based on a 2010 Population of 1,826,341 results in losses of only $36.98/resident on this lottery that returns 58.37% of the wagers.

The Tribal Casinos operate Class II machines and do not report their revenues to the State of Nebraska.

Nevada:

The most well-known state for gambling of them all actually lacks any racetracks as well as lacking a State Lottery. It's quite difficult to hold the Horse Racing against them because they actually do have two events this year that feature horse racing that can be bet upon, furthermore, there is nothing in the law forbidden a racetrack...there's just no way it could comepete with a casino and almost all prospective track owners know that it would be unprofitable...unless it siphoned funds from a casino just like they do in many states! Therefore, I am gto construe Nevada as having racetracks because they do have racing events, and because they could have tracks as far as the law (just not business sense) is concerned.

What might be most baffling about Nevada is the absence of a lottery, however, Nevada will make that up in the points by having a licensed and regulated online Poker industry.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 5 Points

• ---

  Total: 60 Points

The Charitable Gambling Laws of Nevada are actually not much different than those of other states, are lower at $25 per type of gambling (lottery/bingo) offered.

The tax on sports bets and pari-mutuel bets is only 0.25% of the amount wagered.

To determine casino revenues, I am going to use the twelve-month summary as of June 2015 because that is when most states seemed to end that Fiscal Year.

It appears that the Casino Win on all forms of gambling (except race pari-mutuel since it doesn't count for other states) was $11,286,640,000. The population of Nevada for 2010 was 2,700,551 or an astounding $4,179.38/resident of the state. Obviously, many of these revenues come from people outside of the state, or even more, the country.

I cannot find any revenues for the two Tribal Casinos in Nevada, but it won't matter, Nevada is going to blow out every state in terms of gambling revenues/resident with extreme ease.

New Hampshire:

Rockingham Park was the only racetrack in the state to offer live racing, but that ceased within the last few years. However, they do still offer Simulcast Betting, which along with the Lottery and Charitable Gambling are the only legal forms of gambling in the State of New Hampshire.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 15 Points

Based on my research from before, Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the State of New Hampshire, which caused a loss of five points in that regard.

The same report actually covers the 2015 Fiscal Year for Off-Track Betting and Charitable Gambling:

file:///C:/Users/Alexandra/Downloads/03A%20GC%20Agenda%20100715.pdf

They take out Assessments on the games of chance and taxes on the Pari-Mutuel Wagering. The taxes and breakage of the Pari-Mutuel came out to 1.505% in 2015 and no Live Racing has taken place since 2009.

The New Hampshire Lottery had adjusted gross revenue of $283,046,563 and paid $200,672,373 in prizes according to this report.

Which reflects $82,374,190 in losses for a return of almost 70.9%, which is actually really generous by State Lottery standards, if nothing else. In any event, based on the 2010 State Population of 1,316,470, this comes out to a lottery loss of $62.57/person.

New Jersey:

The State of New Jersey has all of these forms of gambling with exception to Tribal Casinos. Furthermore, they also have licensed and regulated Internet Casinos by the State which makes same obviously legal for five extra Base Points.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 5 Points

• ---

  Total: 60 Points

New Jersey permits Charitable Bingo and Raffles issuing licenses under a somewhat complex set of Regulations for the operators and charities which can be found here.

On a side note, I found the following passage amusing, "No games of chance shall be conducted on the first day of the week...commonly known and designated as Sunday..." I don't know why, but it just struck me as amusing that the could not have said, "The first day of the week, Sunday."

Casino revenues for the State of New Jersey in 2015 were $2,563,117,556 against a population of 8,791,801 for losses of $291.53/resident. Interestingly, this is less than many other states with Commercial Casinos whereas NJ and NV were the first two states to have legalized Commercial Gambling.

With that we will move on to the New Jersey Lottery, if we look at Page 16 of the 2015 Fiscal Year report, we see $3,000,528,636 in ticket sales against $1,825,233,183 in prizes for a difference of $1,175,295,453 in losses which represent $133.68 in losses per citizen of New Jersey. This represents a return to player of 60.83%, which is pretty abysmal but about expected for a State Lottery.

New Mexico:

The State of New Mexico has every form of gambling with exception to Commercial Casinos, furthermore, Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the state based on my interpretations of the law from my earlier work.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Points

If you are interested in the Live Handle and Simulcast (Off-Track) revenues for New Mexico, the 2014 Annual Report does a very nice job breaking all of that down into easily understandable sections and also specifies the Commissions to the tracks as opposed to just using the handle.

New Mexico Charitable Gambling allows for Bingo, Raffles and Pull Tabs with fees of $500 per each license type as well as one-half of one percent of the Gross Wagers for each of these types of Charitable Gambling forms.

That brings us to the New Mexico Lottery which conveniently has the 2015 Net Ticket Sales and Prize Expense on Page 17 of its Annual Report.

The lottery had $137,016,723 in sales for that year against $75,592,325 in prizes which results in a player loss of $61,424398 compared to a population in 2010 of 2,059,179 which results in a loss per person of $29.83. Apparently, New Mexico cannot drum up much interest in their 55.17% returning lottery because these are the lowest numbers of any state on the list so far in revenue/resident and likely have a good chance of remaining so.

The State of New Mexico enters into revenue-sharing compacts with tribes who must all report their revenues in a Quarterly Basis, from these reports we can extrapolate the total revenues for the year of 2015.

The total revenues for the year were $718,056,500 which represents revenues (loss) of $348.71/resident.

New York:

The State of New York allows for all forms of gambling with exception to Commercial Gambling. You could almost make the case that New York has casinos, except the machines located in what would otherwise be Commercial Casinos are Class II VLT's which means that the do not function in the same fashion as actual slot machines. Some of these casinos also have Electronic Table Games, but that is not enough (considering the Class II's) to push New York into the realm of allowing Commercial Casinos, so I will agree with the Wikipedia Editors in that regard.

With that said, these revenues are directly attributable to the Video Lottery, and therefore, will be construed as Lottery Revenues.

Furthermore, while there is no expressly legalized and regulated Internet Gambling sites for New York, I have determined that, based on my reading of the laws, it is, 'Not Illegal,' to be a mere player, so they will not lose any points in that regard.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 0 Points

• ---

  Total: 40 Base Points

With that in mind, we will start off with the New York Lottery revenues which, for the year ended in 2015, were $9,156,336,000 in sales against $4,396,853,000 in prizes for a player loss of $4,759,483,000 in standard lottery losses. This represents a House Edge of an insane 51.98%!!!

Moving on to the VLT's:

We see that for the 2015/2016 Fiscal Year there was a net win of $1,987,372,869 which combines with the standard lottery revenues for a total of $6,746,855,869 based on a population of 19,378,102, results in a Lottery loss of $348.17/resident of the state.

The New York State Gaming Commission also regulates the Racing, Simulcast and Charitable Gambling Activities of the state.

North Carolina:

The State of North Carolina has Tribal Gambling, Lotteries and Charitable Gambling only and my earlier work resulted in the conclusion that Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the state.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 15 Base Points

North Carolina law has an allowance and regulations for Bingo/Raffles for Charitable purposes.

That brings us to the North Carolina State Lottery which, combining Page 17 with Page 2 of the Annual Report for 2014 shows that the lottery awarded 1.14B in prizes off of 1.84B in sales with a hold of $700,000,000 which, based on a population of 9,535,483 resulted in revenues of $73.41/resident in losses.

The revenues for Harrah's Cherokee were not immediately available.

North Dakota:

North Dakota is a state that has all forms of gambling with exception to Commercial Casinos. Furthermore, I determined that Online Gambling in the state is, 'Conditionally Illegal,' so we have:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetrack: 10 Points
• Online: -2.5 Points

• ---

  Total: 37.5 Points

In addition to two horse racing tracks that race a limited number of days per year, North Dakota also has a handful of Off-Track Betting locations.

Charitable Gaming is overseen by the Gaming Division of the Office of the Attorney General who administers taxes on a sliding scale depending on the game in question.

If we take a look at the North Dakota State Lottery, specifically Page 9 of this PDF.

We see that total ticket sales were that total sales were $27,010,263 against prizes of $13,978,818 for total losses of $13,031,445 which reflects a return to player of 51.75%. The population of North Dakota in the 2010 Census was 672,591 which results in revenues of $19.37, which is the lowest of any state so far by a good measure.

In terms of Tribal Gaming in the State of North Dakota, I cannot find any information pertaining to overall revenues.

Ohio:

Ohio has every form of gambling on the list with exception to Tribal Casinos, furthermore, it is actually not illegal in the State of Ohio (based on my interpretation of the law) to gamble online.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 0 Points

• ---

  Total: 55 Points

With respect to Charitable Gambling, the State of Ohio allows for Bingo and Raffles which have licensing fees and are taxed (sometimes) on a sliding scale based upon the Gross Receipts of the operations. Furthermore, the licensing fees also operate on a sliding scale on the same basis.

With respect to Simulcast and Live Track Wagering, these are also taxed on a sliding scale for both form of racing betting. The scales can be found on this page and are current even though the report linked is from 2007.

When it comes to Lottery Revenues, revenues are included also from state VLT's which are the devices at the Racinos (but not casinos) in the State of Ohio. Even though they operate on independent RNG's, the machines are hooked into the lottery system to report cash-in, cash-out and Free Play (Promotional Credits) loaded onto the machine. The combined total of revenues from this source as well as ticket sales and Instant Keno totaled $3,776,450,000, but we must subtract $1,875,258,000 in prize payouts from the traditional lottery products to arrive at an overall loss of $1,901,192,000 which, given the population in 2010 of 11,536,504 the revenues (losses) were $164.80/resident.

That brings us to the Commercial Casinos that do not operate on VLT's.

The Adjusted Gross Revenue is $812,320,350 which results in revenues of $70.41/resident. While this is pretty low, keep in mind that the State's Racinos essentially function as casinos, but constitute lottery revenue as opposed to casino revenue.

Oklahoma:

With exception to Commercial Casinos, the State of Oklahoma has every form of gambling on the list. However, I determined that Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the state based on my interpretation of the statutes and resulting in a loss of five points. That leaves us with:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Base Points

Oklahoma law is such that each Bingo Face is charged at a rate of $0.01 for Charitable Gambling while Pull Tabs are charged at a rate of 10% of the total cost of the Pull Tabs when bought from the Distributor. The full gambling laws of the state concerning charitable gambling can be found here.

While not booming, the State of Oklahoma has a fairly active Live Horse Racing schedule with over 200 days this year if one accounts for Fair Meets and over 170 racing days even if those are ignored. If you can make any sense out of this participating Tribe Excel Spreadsheet, more power to you.

With that we shall move on to the Oklahoma State Lottery if we look at Page 7 of this pdf.

We see that the Lottery Sales in 2015 totaled $171,633,476 and the prizes were $87,782,927 resulting in a total loss of $83,850,549 which, based on the 2010 Population data showing 3,751,351 residents reflects a loss of $22.35/resident. Thus far, this is the second lowest loss per resident of any state with a lottery. The return to player of this lottery is $51.15%.

Finally, Tribal gaming is taxed at what appears to be a rate of about 6.00% of Revenues on the Indian Casinos' Class III Gaming devices with taxes of $128,377,887 dubbed, 'Exclusivity Fees.' This is based on $2,138,476,977 in revenues which is $570.06/resident. While the per resident numbers are much higher in Oklahoma, the state does remain second to California in Tribal Gaming revenues overall.

Oregon:

While the Wikipedia Page seems to believe that there is no Live Racing in Oregon, there actually is at the Portland Meadows which has a racing season that spans through the Fall and Winter. While that season has completed as of the time of this writing, there were live racing events in the year 2016 and if there has been any announcement that such will not be the case come the next racing season (Fall) I can not find any information to that effect. Therefore, I will construe Oregon as having Live Racing as well as Simulcast Racing.

As a result, the State of Oregon has all forms of gambling with exception to Commercial Casinos. However, my research determined that Online Gambling is patently illegal within the state, so it shall lose five base points for that:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Base Points

The State of Oregon is pretty loose with Charitable Gambling allowing for Bingo, Raffle and Monte Carlo events at a relatively low cost of $20-$1000 per license depending on the license type and anticipated revenues from the proceeds. Furthermore, in the event that the take is low enough on such events, construed on an annual basis, no license at all might be required in many cases.

The State of Oregon also gets a piece of Pari-Mutuel handles on a graduated basis with certain jurisdictional maximums based on the total handle.

That brings us to the Oregon Lottery which has reported on Page 27 of this pdf.

That they took in $1,117,237,776 in revenues which include their biggest producer by far, Video Lottery revenues. Out of this they paid $211,444,280 in traditional lottery prizes which results in revenues of $905,793,496 in revenues for the Oregon Lottery which, based on the 2010 population of 3,831,074 would result in a loss to the lottery of $236.43/person.

Finally, we come around to Tribal Gaming in the state. According to the most recent Economic Impact report available.

The Tribes in Oregon saw just over 477 million in gaming revenues which would reflect about $124.51/resident.

Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania allows all forms of gambling but has no tribal gambling, additionally, I determined that, based on the statutes of the State, Online Gambling is, 'Not Illegal,' for mere players. Furthermore, the state has actually actively considered legalizing and regulating online gambling, but nothing has been done in that regard as of yet.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 0 Points

• ---

  Total: 55 Base Points

Charitable Gambling requires licensing in the State of Pennsylvania, and such licensing can either be Games of Chance Licensing or Permits for two events to be held (raffles) on a property not owned by the entity holding the events.

With respect to racing revenues in the Commonwealth, those are taxed at a rate of 1.5% or 2.5% depending on the type of wager made.

That brings us around to the Pennsylvania State Lottery which according to this document.

Had $3,819,642,911 in sales against $2,411,651,816 in prize liabilities resulting in a loss to players of $1,407,991,095 which is a 63.14% return. The population of the Commonwealth was 12,702,379 in 2010 which represents $110.84/resident in money lost to the lottery.

That brings us to Commercial Casinos and, according to the 2014-2015 Pennsylvania Annual Report.

Looking at Page 19 and combining the total Table Game and Slot Revenues, we arrive at a loss to players of $3,115,525,984 whioch represents a loss of $245.27/resident of the State of Pennsylvania.

Rhode Island:

Rhode Island is a state in wbhich I determined that Online Gambling is, 'Probably not Illegal,' so no points will be moving either way as a result of their stance on that. Furthermore, the State does not have any Tribal or Commercial Casinos, although, the other forms of gambling are allowed which results in the following score:

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery:5 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: 0 Points

• ---

  Total: 30 Base Points

Of course, Wikipedia is wrong agaoin which will add fifteen points in Rhode Island's favor as all of the greyhound tracks in the state have been closed foor quite some time while the State has had two licensed casinos (including Twin River at the former site of Lincoln Greyhound Park) for multiple years.

As a result, the Base Score for Rhode Island improves to 45 Points.

Charitable Gambling in the state of Rhode Island is actually fully regulated by the Charitable Gaming Division of the Rhode Island State Police who only impose a fee of $5.00 for licensing on a per event basis for Bingo or Raffles to be conducted in accordance with the Rules and Regulations proscribed by state law.

Simulcast Racing is taxed at either 4% or 5.5% of the total wagered depending on the wager type.

That brings us around to the Rhode Island State Lottery which according to Page 35 of this pdf.

Revenue was $865,995,116 led mainly by Video Lottery revenues and prizes from Traditional Lottery were $150,062,564 resulting in an actual loss of $715,932,552 to players which, based on the 2010 population of 1,052,567 results in losses of $680.18/resident.

Now, the Video lottery revenue in question actually comes from the casinos rather than the machines being located in other establishments. As a result, the next part on Commercial Casino revenue is only going to account for Table Games which, according to this report.

Was $106,640,902 or $101.32/resident.

South Carolina:

For some reason, the fearless Wikipedia Editors seem to labor under the impression that charitable gambling is illegal in the State of South Carolina, but it isn't, here are the gambling laws in that regard right here.

The licensing fees can range anywhere from nothing to $4,000 depending on the type of license being sought, though.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Online: -2.5 Points

• ---

  Total: 7.5 Base Points

From Page 10 of this PDF.

We see that the, 'Margin,' for the South Carolina lottery was $481,200,000 which, based on a population of 4,625,364 is $104.04/resident.

South Dakota:

South Dakota appears to have all forms of Gambling with exception to Live Racing, while I did notice a few Live Racing days in South Dakota, they appear to be more associated with charitable events than they are with for-profit gambling-type entities. With that said, the state will lose five points given that the letter of the law would serve to make Online Gambling, 'Patently Illegal,' in my estimation given my interpretation of the law.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 50 Base Points

First of all, the State of South Dakota offers Simulcast Wagering and as we can see from this breakdown of the 2015 revenues, the Tax comes out to well under 1% of the total handle.

Moving on to Commercial Casinos located in Deadwood, the 2015 Annual Report would indicate on Page 12.

That the total revenues generated were $102,290,180.62 from the Deadwood casinos, comparing that to the population of 2010 which was 814,180, the total loss per resident is $125.64.

The Charitable Gambling laws for the state can be found here.

One of the more notable aspects is that Distributors of the devices are charged a tax of 5% of their total sales rather than the organization carrying on the event.

Moving on to the South Dakota State Lottery, we see from Page 5 of their Annual Report.

That the total sales were $641,668,506 with prizes of against prizes of $442,538,510 which reflects losses of $199,129,996 from the players which is $244.58/resident.

It appears that there are no gambling taxes on the Tribes due to the fact that they pay sales, use and excise taxes to the state.

Tennessee:

One could make the argument that Charitable Gambling is technically allowed, but the laws are so restrictive allowing for only one raffle per year, per organization, after getting a permit that I am inclined to agree with the Wikipedia editors that it is effectively illegal.

Tennessee essentially has a categorical ban on all forms of gambling, except the lottery, because they seem to think that must not be gambling.

• Lottery: 5 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 0 Base Points

The Tennessee Lottery had 1.475 Billion in Sales against 981.4 Million in prizes according to Page 3 of this report.

The result is 493.6 Million in revenues which, based on a population of 6,346,105 comes out to a loss of $77.78/resident.

Texas:

Texas does not have Commercial Casinos, Live Racing or even Texas Hold 'Em legalized anywhere in the state. The only forms of gambling that are permitted are charitable, lotteries, simulcast (pari-mutuel) and there are tribal casinos.

With all of that, the gargantuan state of Texas is home to exactly one Tribal Casino, but I guess that counts. Furthermore, Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' based on my earlier findings.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 25 Base Points

These numbers do not reflect that, Legislatively speaking, Texas is one of the least friendly states to gambling out there. Unfortunately, this is one case in which my scoring system kind of falls short because of the credit Texas gets for its one Indian Casino.

Actually, the Wikipedia page is wrong because Texas does, in fact, have live racing as is evidenced by this Live Racing Schedule for Lone Star Park.

Which brings the State of Texas up to 35 points.

Texas Charitable Gambling consists largely of Bingo's and Raffles, and actually, there can be Bingo Halls that operate the games that are essentially playing on behalf of a certain charity. However, the charity effectively rents the hall which results in the possibility of actually losing money on the events.

If we take a look at Page 32 of the Texas Lottery Report.

We see that, in 2015, there were $4,529,700,425 in sales of tickets against $2,858,319,409 in prizes for a player loss of $1,671,381,017 against a population of 25,145,561 for a total loss of $66.47/resident, based on the 2010 Census data for population.

I am inclined, however, to remove the 10 points for Tribal Casinos, the reason that the State only has one is that they work fervently to block all forms of Tribal Gaming, including Class II (Bingo-Based) gaming, which the Tribes have a right to do under federal law. Furthermore, the State of Texas is very active in avoiding entering into any compact with the Kickapoo Tribe that would enable them to engage in Class III Gambling.

Due to their reluctance to at least give the tribes that which they have a right to, I am reducing Texas to 25 Base Points.

Utah:

This couldn't be much simpler, if it's gambling, then it is illegal. In fact, Utah specifically amended its laws to make it clear that Online Gambling is illegal, so I'm going to suggest that this state is even less gambling-friendly than Hawaii. At least Hawaii didn't feel the need to amend its code lest there be a shadow of a doubt. -5 Points and they beat Hawaii in the tie.

Vermont:

The State of Vermont is also quite restrictive on gambling stipulating only a State Lottery as well as Charitable Gambling operations. Furthermore, my research led me to the conclusion that Online Gambling is, 'Probably Illegal,' even though there are really no consequences even if someone was inclined to prosecute you for it.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Online: -2.5 Points

• ---

  Total: 7.5 Base Points

The moderately restrictive Charitable Gambling laws for the state allow for Bingo, Raffles and up to three casino nights per year

With respect to the State Lottery, the lottery, according to Page 3 of this PDF.

The Lottery saw $111,754,881 in sales and returned $72,710,332 of that money for a player loss of $39,044,549 which is a 34.94% lottery hold. The population of Vermont was 625,741 as of the 2010 Census, so therefore, the lottery made $62.40/resident.

Virginia:

The State of Virginia has all forms of gambling with exception to casinos, furthermore, my earlier research led me to the conclusion that Online Gambling is, 'Patently Illegal,' in the state which will cause a further deduction of five points.

• Charitable: 5
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Racetrack: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 25 Base Points

Charitable Gambling is legal, but very heavily regulated in the State of Virginia, fortunately, licensing fees for the organizations are only $50. If you want to take a look at all of the state's regulations, they can be found here.

The Pari-Mutuel and Racing industry may be dying in Virginia given the fact that the state has elected not to allow racing at Colonial Downs for this season. There are a limited number of racing days at tracks in Northern Virginia.

That brings us to the lottery which, according to their page.

Generated 1.84 Billion is sales in 2015 while paying out 60.6% of that in prizes. The result is about $724,960,000 in hold for the Lottery which, based on the population in 2010 of 8,001,024 would result in a loss of $90.61/resident.

Washington:

Washington is an interesting State with respect to Commercial Casinos because it allows for certain Table Games and Poker, but not for slot machines. Furthermore, the number of Commercial Casinos in the State compared to Indian Casinos is only a fraction. That makes it difficult to qualify Washington as truly having Commercial Casinos, and all of the, 'Slot-type,' games at the Indian Casinos are Class II Gaming (electronic Bingo/Pull-Tabs) so there is an absence of any sort of legitimate Video Poker or Class III slots in the state. However, even with that, I will suggest that Washington does have Commercial Casinos.

Also, the Wikipedia Page seems to suggest that there is no Live Racing in Washington, but that's not at all true as the Emerald Downs is one such track with racing throughout 2016.

Washington makes Internet Gambling, 'Patently Illegal,' based on my interpretation of the law in that regard.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 60 Base Points

However, I find it really difficult to put Washington up there with states like Nevada (in base points) in terms of gambling friendliness given the absence of any Class III machines, therefore, I am going to arbitrarily deduct five points for that reason.

According to the Washington State Lottery's Annual Report.

The total in lottery sales was 600.3 Million of which 61.1% went to player prizes. The result is that the lottery held $233,516,700 which, based on a 2010 population of 6,724,540, represents $34.73 in losses per resident.

The best we can do on Washington Card Rooms is the 2014 report, which on Page 4.

>

Shows net receipts of $215,175,648 which would amount to $32.00/person, and that would also constitute all revenues from Commercial Casinos.

There does not appear to be any comprehensive information on Tribal Gaming revenue at this time.

West Virginia:

The State of West Virginia has all forms of gambling with exception to Tribal Casinos as well as widespread Lottery-Run VLT's. The State Lottery Commission is ultimately the overseer of all forms of gambling within the State. However, I did determine that Online Gambling is patently illegal in the State (as are social-home-games) so they will lose five points in that regard.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Commercial: 25 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 50 Base Points

Any revenues garnered from racing activities are essentially meaningless because the State of West Virginia not only pays to supplement the racing industry (especially greyhounds) but also requires a certain percentage of casino gambling revenues to supplement the industry. In fact, that is why the state legalized casinos in the first place. Whatever pathetic amount of revenues are generated by way of the racetracks, they compare in no way whatsoever to the funds that go into supplementing same, therefore, they should only reasonably be construed as a negative source of revenues...even though they do not appear so on paper.

That brings us to the lottery, which also taxes VLT's at the, 'Slot Parlors,' that can be found throughout the state. Because everything falls under the purview of the Lottery Commission, everything is in their 2015 Annual Report.

Unfortunately, we have to dig pretty deep into the report to break everything down on a player loss basis. With respect to Traditional Lottery products, the lottery did $180,000,000 in sales against $106,476,000 in prizes for a total player loss of $73,524,000.

If we go to Page 56, we can basically see that the long and short of it is the player losses from VLT's located at the racetracks were $557,803,000. Moving to Page 57, we see that the Limited VLT losses amount to $373,221,000. Page 58 shows Table Game losses to players of $134,080,494. The West Virginia Lottery also accounts for casino revenues from the GreenBrier separately, and the resort did $4,070,000 in VLT player losses. Finally, players lost $5,664,146 on Table Games at the resort.

As a result, the total loss by players of all gambling types (except racing) is $1,148,362,640, which, based on the 2010 Population of 1,852,994 is $619.73/resident in total losses. All of this shall be construed as Lottery Revenue for reasons previously stated, besides, all known loss sources for Lottery, Tribal and Casino Gambling get summed anyway.

Wisconsin:

According to the Wikipedia page, the State of Wisconsin has all forms of gambling with exception to Commercial Casinos and Live Race Tracks. For my part, I am actually going to disagree because, for the last 5+ years, after the closure of the last Greyhound Racing Park in 2009, there has been no pari-mutuel wagering locations in Wisconsin. While it remains legal in the state, it effectively does not exist anymore.

Online Gambling is ranked as, 'Patently Illegal,' in the State of Wisconsin pursuant to my research on my earlier work. Therefore, the State will also lose five points for that reason.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal Casinos: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 15 Base Points

Pages 10-11 of the Wisconsin Annual Lottery Report keep things pretty simple, they had 568.8 million in sales and paid 336.7 million out in prizes for a 59.19% Return to Player and losses of 232.1 million by the players which, based on the 2010 population of 5,686,986 represent $40.81/resident in losses.

The best we can do on Tribal Gaming is the recent report.

Showing a Net Win of 1.2B from all sources for the Tribes in 2013 which represents $211.01/resident in losses.

Wyoming:

That brings us to Wyoming which has every form of gambling with exception to Commercial Casinos, according to the Wikipedia page. From what I can tell, this information is correct. Wyoming Downs in Evansville apparently had slot machines at one point, but it is closed at this time, which may or may not have something to do with the State, information is really difficult to find in this regard. However, Wyoming definitely has Simulcast Wagering as well as live racing events at Sweetwater Downs.

• Charitable: 5 Points
• Pari-Mutuel: 10 Points
• Lottery: 5 Points
• Tribal: 10 Points
• Racetracks: 10 Points
• Online: -5 Points

• ---

  Total: 35 Base Points

In orde rto get Public Records by the Lottery, one must fill out a form and wait up to seven days in order to receive a response, unfortunately I'm going to say the Hell with this.

And, as a result, Wyoming is not going to receive any increase to base points on a loss per player basis. In fact, Wyoming is the only state for which records are not available for the lottery online which is actually kind of embarrassing for them, at least, in my opinion.

Tribal Gambling data is similarly difficult to come by for this state, so, unfortunately, they will have to live with not getting any increases to their Base Points in this regard.

Scoring and Conclusion:

The first thing that we are going to do is list the state in terms of their Base Points while regarding Utah as the least gambling-friendly state due to the fact that, unlike Hawaii, they specifically amended their statutes to make it expressly clear that Online Gambling is considered illegal. While I do not think any state would actually take action against Online Players, if there was a state that I had to say was most likely to ever do so, then that state would be Utah.

• Colorado-60
• Delaware-60
• Iowa-60
• Louisiana-60
• Michigan-60
• Nevada-60
• New Jersey-60
• Maine-55
• Ohio-55
• Pennsylvania-55
• Washington-55
• California-52.5
• Arkansas-50
• Illinois-50
• Indiana-50
• Maryland-50
• Massachusetts-50
• South Dakota-50
• West Virginia-50
• Rhode Island-45
• Minnesota-40
• Missouri-40
• New York-40
• North Dakota-37.5
• Arizona-35
• Florida-35
• Mississippi-35
• Nebraska-35
• New Mexico-35
• Oklahoma-35
• Oregon-35
• Wyoming-35
• Idaho-35
• Kentucky-30
• Connecticut-25
• Montana-25
• Texas-25
• Virginia-25
• Alabama-22.5
• Kansas-15
• New Hampshire-15
• North Carolina-15
• Wisconsin-15
• South Carolina-7.5
• Vermont-7.5
• Georgia-5
• Alaska-2.5
• Tennessee-0
• Hawaii -5
• Utah -5

In terms of the importance of gambling (gambling-crazed or gambling-friendliness) of each State, we are going to look at a combination of Tribal, Commercial and Lottery revenues on a loss-per-resident basis. While I also originally wanted to do this for racing revenues, it was difficult to determine how much was actually lost by bettors on a consistent basis due to the fact that many states do not account for that taxing only on the handle. Furthermore, some states do not seem to tax these things at all, effectively, as the use the casino revenues to prop up their racing operations. This may change when states decide to stop flushing their money down the toilet.

For many of the states that have Tribal gambling, the revenues are unknown. This is often because the state has not actually entered into a compact with the Tribes, and as a result, the Tribes are not required to report their revenues to a given state. Most states that do enter into compacts do so in order to allow the Tribe to participate in Class III gambling, and in some cases, even Table Gambling. The states do this and garner fees from the Tribes which can generally not be construed as a, 'Tax,' because the state does not have the authority to tax a sovereign tribe. However, as a practical matter, the word, 'Fee,' and the word, 'Tax,' is interchangeable in this regard.

That brings us to Commercial Casino revenues compared to Lottery revenues, in States such as West Virginia, the West Virginia Lottery Commission oversees all forms of gambling as opposed to many other states in which the Lottery Divisions have absolutely nothing to do with that as their is a separate Gaming Commission, Division, or equivalent. In some of these cases, as we are looking at the overall revenues for a state, or rather losses on a per-resident basis, the Lottery losses actually include the casino losses and if you really wanted details, then you would just go look at my entry on an individual state.

Some people might also argue that this list does not suffice because Tribal Gambling is not accounted for by the states that do not have a compact, or do have a compact, but not one that the reporting of data is mandatory. I would argue that such types of gambling do not make the state gambling-friendly, rather, they result in a particular sovereign tribe being gambling friendly. Examples of this are states such as Texas which do everything they can to prevent Tribal gambling from expanding in the state by taking provisions and litigation to prohibit casinos from opening even new Class II locations, which, on a federal level, the tribes absolutely have the right to do if it is on sovereign land.

Beyond that, it is impossible for me to account for data to which I have no access that is prohibitively expensive as Casino City claims they have some of the revenues that I would have wanted from tribes that are not publicly reported. The only problem with that is such access would cost me several hundred dollars to purchase their reports. However, with that said, I believe that I have put together the most comprehensive undertaking in this regard ever on the Internet with respect to figuring out how much gambling revenues actually mean to a particular state. With that said, we will now look at the revenues of these three sources on a loss-per-resident basis to determine where additional points will be rewarded.

The scoring system for this is pretty simple, the higher you are on the List (starting from the top getting 50 points) the more additional points you will receive. If none of the forms of gambling are allowed (such as Hawaii, Utah) or one or more forms is allowed by no data can be determined (Wyoming, Alabama) those states will all receive zero additional points. The order for the revenues will be adjudicated individually in the order of Tribal, Commercial Casino, Lottery and then followed by a total. I will attempt to make a note if everything is construed as Lottery Revenue in a state that has casinos by putting the word, 'Lottery,' in place of a number. Once again, only states in which Tribal Gambling revenue is reported to the State (generally due to a compact mutually entered into by the state) will have any Tribal revenues shown on this breakdown.

With that out of the way, we will now put the states in order in terms of total revenues from Tribal, Commercial and Lottery Gaming awarding 50 additional points to the state with the greatest loss per resident, which is Nevada, and then moving on a descending basis until we get down to Wyoming, a state that we know to have a lottery, but the only one for which the sales numbers are not readily available. Essentially, we know that Wyoming has a non-zero amount of lottery loss per resident, which is certainly more than states that do not have a lottery, so they will be awarded additional points as though they were dead last in loss per resident, which is quite possible among the forms of gambling that are being considered.

Now, for the moment everyone has been waiting for, I will now apply the added points based on the Loss/Resident on those three types of gambling to the Base Scores and put the final scores in order which shall represent the most gambling-happy, gambling-liberal, gambling-crazed...Basically, whatever you want to call it, the most Gambling-Something states!

I also will not differentiate ties, if you prefer the state with the most Base Points, then consider that state the winner of the two, if you think it should be based on loss per person, then you are more than welcome to break the tie that way.

Again, the only tie I will break is Utah and Hawaii because Utah was the only state of the two to specifically amend their law to make clear that they consider Online Gambling illegal. Besides, Hawaii, unlike Utah, actually has redeeming qualities.

US States

Internal Links

• Comparing the Gambling Proclivities of the Countries
• Is it Legal to Gamble Online in the USA?
• Online Gambling in the United States
• Online Casinos for players from the US
• Power to the People!
• US Missing Untold Hundreds of Millions in Dollars

Written by: Michael Shackleford