Gambling

Nevada, which legalized casino gambling in 1931, was the only state to allow this form of recreation until the first of the Atlantic City, New Jersey, casinos opened in 1978. Although on-track wagering on horse races was largely accepted across the United States, legalization of other forms of gambling proceeded at a slow pace, because the general public regarded most forms of gambling as an unacceptable or even quasicriminal activity. A majority of citizens believed that proliferation of legal gambling sites would cause a nationwide crime wave. Even state lotteries, a form of wagering currently considered to be routine and harmless, did not exist until New Hampshire, seeking to improve its cash flow, initiated a lottery in 1964. Other states gradually followed suit, and eventually, took the next step in legalization of gambling by introducing off-track betting on horse races.

With this recent history, the rapid evolution of legalized gambling in the 1980s and 1990s into a nationwide, mainstream business, with $50 billion in annual gross revenues is somewhat surprising. Part of the explanation stems from the introduction of computerized technology into the gambling business. The advent of innovative software and computers facilitated government regulation and greatly reduced the possibility of fraud, suspicious bookkeeping methods, and other dishonest activities. In addition, entrepreneurs and state government officials who had foresight understood that legalized gambling could be extremely profitable to the private sector, which would in turn provide a steady source of tax revenues. Among the entrepreneurs was a group of Native Americans who brought gambling to their reservations in the 1980s. They intended to use this enterprise to offset federal funding reductions, but more important, they wanted to help their community raise itself out of its abject poverty. Their plan was to hire Native Americans to construct gambling venues and then hire Native American staff to run the completed gambling sites. Completed casinos would draw non-Native Americans and their discretionary capital onto the reservation.

The self-improvement efforts of the Native American community, however, are not the only results of legalized gambling. Where legal gambling is widely accessible and available, some of the patrons of gambling establishments will inevitably be individuals for whom gambling is a self-destructive obsession (National Opinion Research Center 1999: 1, 5).