Examining the spatial spillover of gambling regulation in the Czech Republic.

Abstact: Background and aims: The responsibility of spatial regulation of gambling in the Czech Republic is placed on municipalities, the smallest self-governing units in the country. The Czech Republic has one of the smallest average size of municipality in the EU. This creates a possibility that the effectiveness of regulation of gambling may be reduced by spatial spillover to the neighbouring municipality. Thus, the aim of the paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of gambling regulation in the Czech Republic under the conditions of fragmented regulation and mobility of gamblers.
Design: Tax revenues on technical games of all municipalities in the Czech Republic.
Measurements: Pooled OLS regression was used to identify the spatial spillover effect, and, more specifically, to answer the question of whether the proliferation of technical games in populated areas affects the proliferation in surrounding municipalities.
Findings: The decline of tax revenue on technical games (that is directly connected with gambling activity) in a district capital by one percentage point is associated with the rise of the same revenue in surrounding municipalities that are reachable by car in 10 minutes by 0.45 of a percentage point. Spatial spillover in more distant municipalities is close to zero. The results remain stable when control variables are employed.
Conclusions: Local restrictions in district capitals shift the problem to the surrounding municipalities. The regulation in very small regulatory units produces considerable spatial spillover.

摘要：
背景与研究目的：捷克共和国博彩监管的空间职责由该国最小的自治单元——市镇承担。捷克是欧盟平均市镇规模最小的国家之一，这使得博彩监管的有效性可能因空间溢出效应波及邻近市镇而被削弱。因此，本文旨在评估在监管碎片化与赌客流动性并存的条件下，捷克博彩监管的有效性。
研究设计：采用捷克共和国所有市镇的技术游戏税收收入数据。
研究测量：本研究使用混合普通最小二乘（Pooled OLS）回归识别空间溢出效应，具体而言，旨在回答人口密集区域的技术游戏铺开是否会对邻近市镇的技术游戏铺开产生影响这一问题。
研究结果：某区首府的技术游戏税收收入（与博彩活动直接相关）每下降1个百分点，与之车程仅需10分钟的周边市镇的同类税收收入将上升0.45个百分点；而距离更远的市镇的空间溢出效应接近零。纳入控制变量后，该研究结果保持稳健。
研究结论：区首府实施的本地监管限制措施会将博彩问题转移至周边市镇。规模极小的监管单元所推行的监管政策会产生显著的空间溢出效应。