History of Gambling in United States

by Jerry "Jet" Whittaker

December 17, 2006

History Of Gambling In United States:

Two decades ago, commercialized gambling existed in two states and today, various forms of gambling occupy 48 states but only Hawaii and Utah remain free of gambling. Americans spend more money on gambling than on recorded music, theme parks, video games, spectator sports and movie tickets combined. According to the survey in 2002, gamblers dropped $68.7 billion on pari-mutuel betting, sports wagers, lotteries, commercial and Indian casinos and charitable gambling outlets but during the past two years, slots at racetracks or "racinos" and Indian casinos have been two of the most aggressive gambling fronts. State budgets are facing an $80 billion combined deficit and easy racino money is enticing while Indian tribes across the nation are obtaining sovereignty and applying for Class III gambling licences.

What are the gambling activities in olden days?

In 1973, the Commission on the Review of National Policy toward Gambling was created to study gambling in the United States and then the Commission began its report with the statement “Gambling is inevitable. No matter what is said or done by advocates or opponents of gambling in all its various forms, it is an activity that is practiced, or tacitly endorsed, by a substantial majority of Americans."  Though this statement is not that easy but you will see that the popularity of legal gambling has waxed and waned, but has never disappeared. One industry observer noted, "There is a public demand to gamble, but there is no public demand for legalized gambling" and the acceptance of gambling today can be seen by the substantial numbers of players of the various state lotteries and similar illegal games. Now – a-days within the gambling industry, the term gambling has fallen into disfavor and is being replaced by gaming.

In olden days gambling were popular on activities like betting on horses, jai-alai or greyhounds. Later on legal gambling activities included state lotteries; parimutuel betting on horses, greyhounds, and jai-alai; sports book-making; card games; keno; bingo; slot machines; progressive slot machines; video poker machines; video keno machines; video blackjack machines; and video roulette machines but not all of these activities are legal in all places. Hence now these activities have grown tremendously, especially when considering that virtually all have been only recently legal in most states. This growth of gambling has been remarkable in the last 30 years and there after gambling has transformed itself from sinful to well accepted. But the spread has been inconsistent, with each state selecting the type of gaming that it supports or at least condones whereas some states have casinos, but no lotteries or other states have lotteries, but no casinos or some have both.

Illegal gambling still exists by many accounts it still flourishes and the most popular forms of illegal games are "numbers," which is essentially a lottery, and betting with bookies, typically sports betting. Sports betting, in particular, are thought to amount to a large sum and it was very popular in earlier times.

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