Place Your Bet on Politics: Local Governments Roll the Dice

Concentrating at the local level, this study expands on existing research by measuring the political and economic determinants of gambling policy. Using data from the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, a larger data set of interest group activity, levels of saliency, fiscal stress, and leisure orientation were constructed. This article examines the political determinants from the morality policy framework and the economic variables that produce local gambling policy, their interaction effects, and the mediating variable of institutional structure. The evidence shows that political variables, or the determinants of morality policy, are significant predictors of local gambling codes and ordinances, whereas economic variables lack statistical significance. There are substantial interaction effects of interest groups and saliency, and when mediated by local government structure, unreformed governments experience more restrictive gambling policy.