Gambling outlets as agents of local area disorganization: Crime and local institutions, the case of the UK

Amid growing public and policy concerns there is a great need for a systematic analysis of the relationship between commodity industries and social disorganization. Using data from the ONS, the UK Census, the UK Police Street-level Crime Dataset, and the POI Ordnance Survey, we analyse the association between gambling outlets as an example of a commodity industry and crime events across England and Wales and explore the possibility of a heterogeneous effect dependent upon the level of deprivation and residential stability of an area. Our findings show that gambling outlets are significantly and positively associated with different types of crime even when controlling for other businesses, the areas’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Small businesses provide distinctive shielding effects – in areas of high density of small business owners, there is no significant correlation between crime types and gambling density. Our results have significant policy implications.