Measuring the impact of casino proceeds on total per pupil expenditures for education in Mississippi Available to Purchase

The Mississippi Legislature adopted casino gaming in 1990 for the purpose of curing financial ills that have long plagued the Magnolia state. Local policy makers were given the opportunity to tax the casino industry at 3.2 percent of gaming wins, with an additional .8 percent if these local government stakeholders deemed it necessary to extract additional supplemental revenue from the casino industry. One program designated as a beneficiary of this revenue-generating source was education. This paper borrows research techniques from the lottery literature in an effort to measure the impact of casino gaming dollars on per pupil spending in Mississippi. The conclusions reached by this research suggests that the thirteen school districts receiving casino proceeds for education are significantly benefiting from this supplemental source of revenue.