Rolling the dice in Atlantic City: A study of patrons as victims of crime on the casino floor (New Jersey)

Crime committed in the casino has remained empirically unexamined chiefly because access to individual casino crime reports have been unobtainable by social scientists or have only appeared as part of the aggregate crime data for Uniform Crime Reporting purposes. Special permission by New Jersey casino regulatory officials permitted review of all crimes committed against casino patrons for 1999--2000 for all casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Though restricted by agreement from interviewing victims or offenders, analysis of crime reports, interviews of casino regulators, and discussion with casino security provided detailed description of the spatial and temporal distribution of crime on the casino floor. This study found strong support for the Routine Activities Theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979) and expanded the theoretical paradigm by examining a new milieu (casino floor) and new sub-population (casino patrons). Incidence of casino crime was exceedingly low suggesting the high number of capable guardians on the casino floor was an effective deterrent. The crime data overwhelming indicated that of those who were victimized, that theft was the typical crime reported and the most likely targets were elderly women whose purses or coin-cups were stolen while wagering at the slot machines. Theft of this type suggests that the victims may have unwittingly abetted the crime through distraction or lack of vigilance. Nevertheless, the casino floor remains a safe place for visitors to enjoy an ever-burgeoning leisure time activity. When grounding policy, both the casino industry and the State can benefit when data are made accessible and subjected to empirical analysis.