Department/School
Finance
Date of this version
2013
Document Type
Working Paper
Keywords
gambling, public finance
Abstract
This paper uses variation in Illinois casino taxes to estimate the elasticity of casino adjusted gross receipts (AGR) with respect to the marginal casino tax rate. Illinois’ shift to a graduated rate schedule initiated increases in the highest marginal tax rate on AGR from 20% to 70% with reversion to a 50% rate. We construct a state-level casino tax rate variable based on the effective marginal rates on AGR at individual casinos, imputing the tax on casino admissions as a proportion of adjusted gross receipts. We find that a 1% increase in this casino tax rate decreases AGR by 0.2%.