Summary:

In October of 2017, the UMass Donahue Institute’s Economic and Public Policy Research Unit (UMDI), as part of the SEIGMA research team, published a report of the first year of operation at Plainridge Park Casino (PPC)—the first casino to open in Massachusetts following the passage of the Expanded Gaming Act in 2011. That report utilized proprietary data from PPC provided to UMDI under PPC’s agreement with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) on employment, wages, and spending, along with revenue data from the MGC. The report also included findings from a survey of PPC patrons conducted on-site during that first year of operation. The data from that survey, along with the operations data from PPC and the MGC, allowed UMDI to produce a full economic impact analysis using a REMI PI+ economic impact model.

In subsequent fiscal years, budgetary constraints have prevented the SEIGMA team from dedicating resources to additional patron surveys. Operating data from PPC and the MGC, however, have continued to be collected and tabulated. This report aims to illustrate how operations at PPC have changed in the last three fiscal years, but it does not employ a full economic impact analysis since we do not have information on how patron behavior has changed since the first year of operation. This report is presented as a time-series, as it analyzes the first four years of operation at PPC (FY 2016, FY 2017, FY 2018, and FY 2019) with a focus on Fiscal Years 2017, 2018, and 2019.