The City of Boston is seeking a research partner to conduct an institutional review of how a commercial casino in Everett is impacting youth.
Wynn Resorts invested $2.6 billion to build an integrated resort casino in Everett. Encore Boston Harbor opened in June 2019 and has since become the top revenue-earning casino in the commonwealth.
Now, Boston city officials want to examine how the casino has impacted youth in Charlestown. The neighborhood is the oldest in Boston and is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River and just south of the Mystic River separating Boston from Everett.
Boston’s request for proposals (RFP) deadline is 11:59 pm EST this Wednesday, September 18. The city’s Office of Human Services will review the submissions and select a vendor to carry out the review. The winning bidder will be compensated no more than $177K for the contract that is to run from Oct. 15, 2024, to Oct. 15, 2025.
Study Focus
Jose Masso, the chief of the Human Services Office, says the focus of the casino study will be to determine if the existence of Encore Boston Harbor has shaped young people’s perception of and interest in gambling. The probe is also to conclude what sort of attitudes young people, defined as aged 14-25, have toward the Wynn complex.
The contracted researchers will examine what sort of community elements are in place to educate young people about the risks of participating in gambling and protective measures to make sure youth don’t gamble before they’re legally of age to participate.
A 2022 study commissioned by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) found that the state’s allowance of three casinos has normalized gambling for younger people. The Charlestown probe will seek to solidify those findings and develop ways to make sure such normalization doesn’t lead to higher rates of problem gambling.
What role can the City play in protecting youth from being harmed or exploited by gambling?” the RFP asks in the project summary.
The younger the age at which a person first gambles has been proven to correlate with greater severity of gambling problems later in life, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluded in a March 2023 report.
Gambling Prevalence
It’s been several decades since commercial casinos were largely confined to Nevada and Atlantic City. Today, more than half of the adult population in the Northeast lives within 25 miles of a casino.
Social science experts say the three As — accessibility, availability, and acceptability — are “ecological predictors” of gambling participation. Paulette O’Gilvie, a doctor of philosophy at Capella University’s Department of Human Services, wrote in a 2022 study that casinos in urban settings, such as Encore Boston Harbor, might do more harm than good.
“The review found that urban casinos are typically placed in low socio-economic communities with some existing gambling culture, socio-economic improvements are promised to existing disadvantaged communities prior to the adoption of casinos, but modest economic benefits realized in urban casino neighborhoods are unsustainable, and increased accessibility and availability of urban casinos due to proximity could increase casino participation, which in turn could potentially increase gambling-related problems,” O’Gilvie wrote in her report titled, “The Impact of Casino Proximity on Northeast Urban Communities.”
Boston’s RFP for the Encore study says the majority of patrons who visit the Wynn casino come from nearby communities, including Charlestown.
“As the casino works to make itself even more enticing and accessible, the impact this will have on young people is not well known,” the RFP concluded.
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