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The European Journal of Health Economics
Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics 9/2023

04-01-2023 | Original Paper

The social value of gambling: surplus estimates by gambling types for France

Authors: Maxence Miéra, Sophie Massin, Vincent Eroukmanoff

Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics | Issue 9/2023

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Abstract

We estimate the social surplus of gambling in France by adding three components: consumer surplus, producer surplus and taxation revenue. To estimate consumer surplus, we use the rational benchmark approach, which attributes a loss of welfare (i.e. a negative surplus) to problem gamblers depending on their level of excess spending compared with recreational gamblers. Using data for the year 2019 and considering only legal gambling, we find that the consumer surplus is negative for the gambling activity as a whole. When we add the producer surplus and the taxation revenue to the consumer surplus, we find that the social surplus is more likely to be negative, ranging from − 45 billion euros in the pessimistic scenario to + 6 billion euros in the optimistic scenario. There are, however, important differences between gambling types. The social surplus is negative in all scenarios for poker and sports betting. Conversely, it is positive in all scenarios for draw lotteries and scratch cards.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
The concepts of price and quantity are a bit peculiar in the gambling sector. We will explain in more detail what they mean and how we measure them in "Gambling spending and revenue at the aggregate level".
 
2
The price uniqueness implicitly requires that the expected loss rate is identical for all gamblers and homogeneous within each gambling type, which is a simplifying working assumption.
 
3
See Soullier et al. [12] for a presentation of the Health Barometer.
 
4
This issue substantially reflects the distinct nature of a public health approach and a clinical one. The matter is rather complex, and the overview is quite schematic. See Delfabbro and King [21] and Browne and Rockloff [16] on the relevance of the prevention paradox for gambling, and Browne and Rockloff [22] and Delfabbro and King [23], on the difference between gambling-related harms and gambling disorders.
 
5
The measure of problem gambler surplus (Eq. 6) is non-linear. Thus, the measurement obtained in a group with a PGSI score of 3–27 is different from that obtained by summing the surplus of subgroups with a PGSI score of 3–7 and 8–27. It then seems reasonable to separate the two groups in the calculation to preserve their characteristics rather than assigning them those of an aggregate group.
 
6
This way of defining gambling spending is equivalent to that of the GGR (which removes winnings from bets). The issues of proper understanding of the question and reliability of self-reported data are addressed in the discussion.
 
7
Note that this method is not usable for slot machines, poker, and other table games because of the small number of regular recreational gamblers. As pointed out by the Productivity Commission ([1], vol. 3, p. C19) for the casino table game category: “even ‘enthusiastic’ recreational players, appear not to play weekly”. We then use the median spending of all recreational gamblers rather than regular recreational gamblers for these games.
 
8
The Française des Jeux (FDJ) has a monopoly on offline and online lottery games and offline sports betting. The Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) has a monopoly on offline horse racing betting. Slot machines and table games are authorized only in land-based casinos, which are subject to an operating licence from the Ministry of the Interior. Online sports and horse racing betting and poker are the only games officially open to competition.
 
9
See Tirole ([26], p. 66 et seq.) on monopoly pricing behaviour.
 
10
I.e. an approach where the producer surplus is measured as: \(PS = NGR - VC = \Pi + FC\), where \(VC\) is the variable costs, \(\Pi\) is the economic profit, and \(FC\) is the fixed costs. To our knowledge, there is no other available estimate of producer surplus in the literature.
 
11
See Table 12 in the Appendix for details of the correspondence.
 
12
Details of gains and losses for each category of problem gamblers are provided in the Appendix (Table 13). The loss on excess spending exceeds the gain on recreational spending for each category of problem gamblers and each type of gambling. As a result, the surplus is negative for each type of gambling and each category of problem gamblers.
 
13
The shift in the threshold trivially changes the categories of recreational and problem gamblers. It also modifies the median spending of recreational gamblers (regular or not) and the share of recreational spending for problem gamblers. Note further that we compute the surpluses of problem gamblers with PGSI scores of 1–2, 3–7, and 8–27 separately before adding them when the threshold is set at 1 + .
 
14
Note that the loss in consumer surplus exceeds the GGR for the gambling type with a negative social surplus in the baseline scenario Table 6. It follows that the estimate of producer surplus does not impact the sign of the social surplus in the baseline scenario since the taxation revenue plus the producer surplus is necessarily inferior to the GGR.
 
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Metadata
Title
The social value of gambling: surplus estimates by gambling types for France
Authors
Maxence Miéra
Sophie Massin
Vincent Eroukmanoff
Publication date
04-01-2023
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
The European Journal of Health Economics / Issue 9/2023
Print ISSN: 1618-7598
Electronic ISSN: 1618-7601
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-022-01560-9

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