Gambling Addiction

The Making of a Deviant Behavior

With the publication of Bergler's work, gambling became a sickness—an illness beyond the realm of vice or sin. Gambling moved outside the usual deviant subcultures and could now be found in all social classes and in every neighborhood. In short, gambling became a medicalized behavior with all the corresponding treatment options. Moving gambling away from being a vice, a controllable sin, opened the door for this behavior to become legalized and, thereby, less deviant. This transition did not happen overnight! There is a history to this change, and it starts in Nevada.

Gambling has been legal in Nevada since 1931. For several decades, Reno and Las Vegas enjoyed a monopoly on legal gaming. Nationally, legalization of gambling began in 1963. New Hampshire became the first state other than Nevada to decriminalize gambling. New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts followed soon after with their own legislation legalizing gambling. By the early 1980s, more than 37 states had lotteries and 23 had some form of state-sponsored gambling, including riverboats, horse tracks, dog tracks, off-track betting (OTB), and the ubiquitous bingo hall. From May 2011 to May 2012, wagering on horse racing alone was $4,708,541,276. Half of all wagers in America are placed by only 1.6% of horse racing enthusiasts. It has been estimated that 20% of the horse racing bettors wager in excess of $12,000 a month.

In his book Pathological Gambling: The Making of a Medical Problem, Brian Castellani argues that the gambling industry was quick to step in when lotteries were not generating the desired revenues for states struggling financially. Castellani demonstrates that a shift in the discourse was necessary to move legalization forward. By fusing an economic argument with a scientific model, proponents of legalized [Page 292]gambling were able to move this issue from a discussion of morality to one of individual behavior. It was at this time, as his subtitle says, that gambling became a medical problem.

There is a considerable amount of debate concerning the proper classification for gambling as a behavior—legal or medical. Gambling became more acceptable as states legalized more forms of gaming. Several court cases were stretching the legal parameters to their limits. As more prosecutors struggled to deal with the shifting moral and legal ground, the movement to medicalize gambling behavior increased.

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