The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has provided a $1 million per year grant over the next three years to the University of Massachusetts (UMass) to investigate the impact of casino gambling in the state. The most recent grant will allow the school to specifically study the economic and social impact in the Springfield and Boston Harbor areas.

This study will be the final piece of a 12-year investigation entitled “Social and Economic Impacts of Massachusetts.” The UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences had been responsible for the research, with the final part of their study focused on MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor.

The findings of the UMass Amherst study on the Springfield area will be released either in the spring or summer this year. The Encore Boston Harbor assessment is expected to be released in the fall.

In a statement by lead investigator Rachel Volberg, she said, “This will continue to be the longest-lasting study of the impacts of the introduction of a new form of gambling in a jurisdiction. What’s going to be most interesting going forward is being able to have a fine-grained understanding of the disparate impacts that introducing different kinds of casinos has on communities that are differentially at risk of experiencing gambling-related harms.”