It has been over a year-and-a-half since the United States Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision to strike down the federal ban on sports gambling that prohibited betting on sports in most. In some states, casinos are restricted to 'riverboats', large multi-story barges that are, more often than not, permanently moored in a body of water. Online gambling has been more strictly regulated, however. The Federal Wire Act of 1961 outlawed interstate wagering on sports but did not address other forms of gambling.

1. Is Online Gambling Banned In America 2019
2. Is Online Gambling Illegal In Us

According to The American Gaming Association (AGA), the gambling industry in the US is worth $261 billion and supports 1.8 million jobs in 40 states (1); however, gambling has had a difficult (and illegal) history in the USA and it is just up until now that the path is being cleared.

Several anti-gambling laws have been in place since the great depression and gaming has been heavily regulated ever since. Some of those regulations haven’t been updated since the 60’s. Despite this, the widespread use of the internet (and online casinos) have made the betting scene change notably and laws have started to shift (2).

Today, the industry faces a rapid growth and increased revenue moving away from the stigma it once held, making it easier for people to access online gaming and betting.

Gambling Revenues in the USA

USA gambling revenues increased to over $160 billion in 2018. Now that sports betting is legal, most gaming experts and financial analysts predict the total revenues for US betting each year will top $200 billion. Whether it’s a lottery ticket, slot machines, sports bets, bingo, or poker, Americans love to gamble.

As each year passes, US state governments expand legalized and regulated games of chance, which encourages more gambling. 2018 was no different. Below is a breakdown of the revenue generated by each form of betting each year.

US commercial casinos generated $41.2 billion in 2017, a 3.7% increase year-to-year from 2016 and a new record for gross gaming revenues for US commercial casinos. New casinos in Maryland and New York added to the increased revenues in 2017. MGM National Harbor in Maryland was the most successful new casinos, but Del Lago Resorts, Rivers Casino, and Resorts World Catskills in New York state also contributed.

Is Online Gambling Banned In America 2019

In all, commercial casinos generated $51,395,562,664 in revenues in 2018. The total represents a 3.5% increase over 2017. Commercial casinos sustained 737,450 jobs and paid $34.334 billion in worker income. The Las Vegas Strip generated $6.59 billion in gaming revenues in 2018, making it the top destination. Atlantic City came in second with $2.51 billion, which shows a strong 5-year bounce back from its $2.1 billion in 2014. Chicagoland, Baltimore-Washington DC, and New York City finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th among commercial casino markets.

The National Indian Gaming Council still has not released full tribal casino statistics, so the NIGC’s 2016 gross gaming revenues are the most recent official revenue statistics. In 2016, America’s tribal casinos generated $31.195 million in gross gaming revenues. That is up nearly $1.3 billion from 2015, which itself increased $1.4 billion from 2014. If one projected similar growth year-to-year from 2016 to 2017, one might expect to see gross gaming revenues in the range of $33.3 billion for 2017. To avoid speculation, we list the 2016 official statistics. The NIGC releases the previous year’s figures in June or July each year, so check back for the latest results.

Tribal casinos generated $32.801 billion in 2018 — a 3.5% increase over 2017. At its current pace, the tribal casino industry should overtake commercial casino revenues by the year 2030. Like the commercial gambling industry, a handful of tribal casinos launched sportsbooks.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians opened sports betting at their three land-based casinos, while the Pueblo of Santa Ana opened a sportsbook at Santa Ana Star Casino near Albuquerque, New Mexico. The bookmakers’ success could open the door for many other tribal sportsbooks across the United States.

Nevada poker room revenues showed less than 1% growth, as gross gaming revenues were $118.46 million. The 2017 poker rake was $117.7 million. The Nevada figures were a minor miracle, considering that several Nevada poker rooms closed in the past year. MGM Resorts closed the Mirage poker room in February 2017, while the Hard Rock Las Vegas poker room closed in March 2017 and Luxor cardroom closed in May 2017. (The cardrooms for the Linq, Eastside Cannery, The Plaza, and Aliante Casino closed in 2016.)

Atlantic City’s seven poker rooms added $28.38 million in gross gaming revenues in 2017. Pennsylvania’s live poker revenues equaled $60 million. MGM National Harbor in Maryland collected $44.5 million in poker rake alone last year, which was the vast bulk of Maryland poker revenues in 2017. New York’s new live poker rooms, on the other hand, contributed only $6.7 million to the nation’s live poker revenue total. It is difficult to calculate accurately the live poker revenues for America’s 6,100+ live poker rooms. Tribal casinos contain many card rooms and they do not have to report their earnings to states. Thus, it is likely that some poker revenues might be listed under tribal casino statistics.

Nevada poker rooms increased their total rake from $118.45 million to $120.1 million. On the other hand, Atlantic City poker revenues dropped from $28.38 million in 2017 to $27.028 million in 2018. Pennsylvania’s live poker revenues remained in the $60 million range. MGM National Harbor remained high with over $45 million in poker rake, while the New York state live card rooms continued with a week haul with a little over $7 million in revenues. As always, it’s difficult to gauge total poker revenues, because tribal casinos include their poker rake with their other casino games.

Ultimately, the official US poker room revenues remained steady at $1.9 billion. 2018 showed the US poker industry holding steady after two years of decline. Fewer Las Vegas casinos have card rooms than they did ten years ago, but 2018 did not have any major Vegas poker rooms close. 2016 and 2017 showed a marked decline. MGM Resorts closed the Mirage poker room in February 2017, Hard Rock Las Vegas’s poker room closed in March 2017, and the Luxor cardroom closed in May 2017. In 2016, the cardrooms for The Plaza, the LINQ, Eastside Cannery, and Aliante Casino closed. Still, the United States has over 6,100 poker rooms, so the revenue stream remained steady throughout 2018.

US online gambling produced $247.5 million in revenues in 2017. New Jersey’s online gambling industry continues to grow. In 2017, the combined revenue of Atlantic City’s online casinos and poker sites was $245 million. That’s a 21% increase from 2016 when New Jersey’s iGaming niche generated $195 million. Delaware added only $2.4 million in online gambling revenues, which was an 18% decline.

Mike Lawton of the Nevada Gaming Control Board said online poker revenues are included in total poker revenues for the state, so it is hard to get official statistics for Nevada online poker. Given the fact, only two Nevada online poker sites exist and state regulators try to hide the small revenue stream, one can assume Nevada’s iPoker stats are tiny. Nevada has about twice the online gamblers as Delaware, so $5 million is a safe assumption. Those poker revenues are not included in our figures, though, because they are included in Nevada’s overall poker stats.

New Jersey grabbed the lion’s share of legal US online gambling revenues in 2018 with $298.7 million. Five years into its experiment with online gambling, New Jersey’s online casino and poker portals continue to grow apace. Delaware and Nevada both have regulated online poker, but despite the Multi-State Internet Gambling Association (MSIGA), their revenues were negligible. Pennsylvania will be a huge factor in 2019, but its online poker and casino industry was still getting off the ground in 2018.

Interstate online gambling faces a severe test in 2019. The U.S. Department of Justice declared in January 2019 that interstate online poker is illegal under federal law, striking a blow to the MSIGA pact between Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey. The New Hampshire Lottery sued because its online lotto ticket sales are endangered by the 2019 DOJ opinion, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania filed their own lawsuit to protect their online poker and casino industries. Whatever happens with the legal cases, US online gambling revenue growth should be significant in the coming year, because Pennsylvania’s iGaming industry launches.

Like the tribal casino revenues, compiling an official list of lottery revenues takes a bit longer each year, because of the patchwork of state-run lotteries and multistate lottery associations. In 2016, US lottery ticket sales were $80.5 billion. The projected figures for 2017 are expected to exceed $85 billion, due to upticks in the sale of scratchcards and the increases in the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpot sizes. Scratch-off tickets are the biggest contributor, with the Powerball and Mega Millions multi-state lottery association games contributing the second and third-most to the revenue pool.

New York state had the biggest lottery ticket sales, with over $10 billion. California, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas were next in line. Each of those four states had between $5 billion and $6.5 billion in lottery sales.

The combined revenues of US lotteries for 2018 sit around the $72 billion mark. The U.S. Census Bureau releases the official lottery revenue statistics each year. So far, the Census Bureau has not released official 2018 lottery revenues. The 2017 lottery total was $71.826 billion, while the 2016 lottery statistics were $72.649 billion. That shows a regression of nearly $800 million from 2016 to 2017, though that number reflects a statistical anomaly in lottery drawings more than a loss of interest in the state and multistate lotteries.
State politicians are leery of allowing legal online gambling, though, because they fear it would harm lottery sales. Departing Michigan Gov. Bill Snyder vetoed an online poker and casino bill in December 2018, because he said lottery taxes are higher and iGaming would hurt lottery sales (thus tax revenues). Given the recent trends, it’s a safe bet that US lottery revenues in 2018 were around $72 billion for the year. Mega Millions and Powerball drawings continue to dominate national attention, while their revenues increase year to year.

The revenue figures for US legal sportsbooks came from Nevada and Delaware in 2017. Nevada bookmakers won $248 million from sports bettors in 2017, which was a record year. New forms of betting on eSports helped, though the growing impact of William Hill USA on the Nevada sports betting scene helped. Even hockey betting was up in 2017, thanks to the inclusion of the Las Vegas Golden Knights to the NHL. The Golden Knights’ surprising first-year performance helped drive local sports betting, though it was general NFL, Super Bowl, MLB, NBA, and March Madness betting which generated the most revenues.

Delaware, which had legalized sports lotteries, generated the remaining $6 million in sports betting revenues. Delaware’s sports lotteries require players to make parlay bets of 3 or more games. Delaware sportsbook revenues should increase significantly in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s repeal of the PASPA sports betting ban. Delaware plans to open legal sportsbooks at Dover Downs, Delaware Park, and Harrington Raceway on June 5, 2018. New Jersey sportsbooks at the Atlantic City casinos and Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport should follow suit quickly. US sports betting revenues should have a big jump in 2018.

Given the landmark US Supreme Court decision to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) as unconstitutional, US sports betting revenues increased significantly. Several states (New Jersey, Delaware, Mississippi, West Virginia) legalized sports betting in the months after the May 14 SCOTUS decision. Led by New Jersey, the new sports gambling jurisdictions generated $129.6 million in a little over 6 months of activity.

Meanwhile, Nevada benefited from the additional media coverage given to sportsbooks, so it generated $301.0 million. In all, the legal US sports betting industry generated $430.6 million in revenues – a $182 million increase from 2017. The number should increase significantly in 2019, when New Jersey and Mississippi feature a full year of sportsbook operations. Pennsylvania bookmakers also launched in late 2018 and early 2019, which should boost numbers greatly.

Pari-mutuel racebooks generated $300 million in revenues in 2018. Pari-mutuel wagering is the legal term for betting on horse racing and dog racing. Bettors receive winning for the thoroughbreds, harness racers, or greyhounds which finish in the top three of a particular race (win-show-place). Pari-mutuel wagering also includes a variety of trifecta bets and parlay bets, which pay out more, but hit for the bettor less often.

Dog racing now is allowed in only 5 US states, as the Florida electorate voted to ban greyhound racing (Amendment 13) in the coming years. Most greyhound tracks continue to act as off-track betting facilities (OTBs), offering simulcasting and wagers at over 200 race venues worldwide. Churchill Downs, site of the annual Kentucky Derby, continues to generate almost 60% of the racebook revenue ($175 million) in the United States. Besides the world-famous Louisville-area horse track, Churchill Downs Incorporated owns racetracks and even a few land-based casinos across the United States.

The US pari-mutuel racebook industry must find new ways to drive customers or die a slow death in America. Race betting declined significantly in the past generation due to competition from the lottery, tribal casinos, online casinos, and mobile betting. After the US Supreme Court repealed the federal ban on sports betting (PASPA) in May 2018, sports betting should grow significantly in the coming 5 to 10 years. US pari-mutuel racebooks face another major competitor, so they’ll need to find innovative ways to bet on horse and dog racing or that $300 million total will decline.

For generations, charitable bingo halls have generated cash for civic organizations, veterans groups, religious groups, fraternal organizations, firefighters, and other charity organizations. Charitable bingo remains a major focus, but organizations also hold raffles, poker nights, and sell pull-tab games to the public.

As lottery betting and tribal casinos have increased over the past two decades, charitable gaming and bingo participation has decreased in many states. Charitable gaming is a major source of fundraising for nonprofit organizations in the United States. The numbers haven’t declined across the board, as Michigan’s poker nights (millionaires clubs) increased greatly from 2002 to 2012, due to making it easier to attain a charitable gaming license. Even in Michigan, though, the decline since 2012 has been significant. Meanwhile, Minnesota increased its charitable gaming revenues significantly, as part of a plan to fund the Minnesota Vikings’ football stadium.

As the US population has increased in the past 16 years, the number of charitable organizations holding bingo nights and raffles has increased. That means the overall decline in charitable gaming revenues was slight, from $2.2 billion to $2.15 billion, though the decline in revenue-per-venue and real money value due to inflation is stark.

Each US state organizes and regulates charitable gaming in their own way. Groups pays taxes to the states, but otherwise remain coy about their fundraising. Different states have different terms for their games (Millionaire’s clubs, pickle games, fish games), which adds to the confusion. This makes a completely accurate total of charitable gaming revenues more an estimate than an official tally. Charitable gaming revenues stayed in the $2.1 billion range for 2018.

What Is Online Gambling in the US?

The gambling industry in the United States is the sum total of all forms of legal betting. US gambling includes commercial and tribal casinos, state and multistate lotteries, sportsbooks and racebooks, real money online casinos and poker sites, as well as charitable gaming and bingo halls.

US gambling statistics do not include unregulated online gambling, local bookies, organized poker games in your neighborhood, office pools, fantasy leagues, or March Madness brackets. Because such gaming is unregulated and untaxed, it is hard to get accurate statistics for them. The American Gaming Association and other groups estimate yearly betting turnover of illegal gambling, but the AGA’s data is an educated guess.

In this US gambling report, Online United States Casinos stick to the facts. Most of the statistics below are compiled from state regulatory agencies. Each month, gaming commissions, gaming control boards, and state lotteries across the United States produce gambling statistics. We’ve collected the latest gaming data and compiled it into several gambling categories, which we present below.

Is Gambling Legal in the US?

Many forms of gambling are legal in the United States, but no form of gambling is legal everywhere. Because the United States is a constitutional republic with a federated system of government, the USA is a patchwork of state and federal gaming laws. That makes gambling legality complicated in the United States. What it does mean is Americans who love to bet can find places to live with permissive gambling laws, while Americans who dislike gambling can find states where gambling is 100% banned.

US gambling laws are complicated because each state deals with its own gaming interests and social mores. Nevada is the most pro-gambling states in the United States, as Las Vegas and Reno are gambling destinations. At the same time, Nevada is one of a handful of states which bans lotteries — because it would compete with the billion-dollar resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. Kentucky bans casino betting, though it is the center of the United States horse racing (and horse betting) industries.

As a general rule, legalized gambling has expanded greatly in the past 25 to 30 years. After the Indian Gambling Regulation Act of 1988, tribal casinos expanded to 28 states. California and Oklahoma are two US states with huge tribal gaming industries, but dozens of others exist. The expansion of tribal gaming caused US states to liberalize their commercial casino industries, so states like Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, and Kansas expanded casinos greatly. Pennsylvania legalized casino betting at racetracks and now collects more gaming tax revenues than any states besides Nevada.

Lottery gambling has grown exponentially, too. The Powerball and Mega Millions have the biggest lottery jackpots in the world. State lotteries’ scratch-card tickets generate the most tax revenue. Meanwhile, online and mobile casino gambling and poker betting has grown in popularity. While many Internet gaming sites are unregulated, legal online/mobile gambling exists in 4 states and is expected to be legalized in other US states in the coming years.

Utah and Hawaii are the only two US states which have a 100% ban on all forms of gambling. In Utah or Hawaii, you can’t visit a casino, buy a lottery ticket, make a sports bet, or even play in a bingo hall. All 48 other U.S. states have some form of legalized gambling. In the USA, many southern states restrict gambling significantly, because of the social conservative values in many states. Despite that general statement, all southern states can’t be pegged as anti-gambling.

Alabama bans gambling (even lotteries) in anything but tribal casinos, while Mississippi has dozens of casinos on the Gulf Coast and Tunica County. South Carolina bans most forms of gambling, while Florida allows expanded gambling for the Seminole Tribe and even 8 counties throughout the state. Texas bans all but lottery betting and horse racing, while its neighbors, Oklahoma and Louisiana, allow casino betting; Texans flock to those casinos.

Types of Gambling

Readers might be wondering about the types of gambling that takes place inside the United States. Below is a glossary list of the betting opportunities Americans have, along with a quick description of each form of gambling. We provide revenue data for each type below.

• Commercial Casinos: Owned by private companies and publicly-traded companies alike. Commercial casinos can be land-based casinos, riverboat casinos, airport casinos, racetrack-casinos (racinos), or casino cruises. Many have Class III or Las Vegs-style slot machines, while others use Class II Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) or Video Gambling Terminals (VGTs).
• Tribal Casinos: Owned by Native American tribal gaming authorities and based on Indian reservation lands. A landmark 1986 US Supreme Court case (Cabazon v. California) stated Native American reservations are sovereign lands (and thus able to house casinos) if they were recognized by the US Department of the Interior’s Indian Affairs Bureau by 1934 or before. The Cabazon case led to the US Congress passing the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which says Indian tribes which reach a gaming compact with the states they are inside can have casino gambling with Class II slot machines. States can tax tribal casinos for the cost of regulation but can tax more, if the state gives special concessions like statewide monopolies on certain gaming types.
• Card Rooms: Card rooms can exist inside or outside a land-based casino. Many Las Vegas Strip casinos and Atlantic City have their own poker rooms. In certain states, commercial card rooms or poker clubs exist. The Bicycle Club, Hollywood Park Casino, and Cameo Club in Los Angeles are a few examples of private card rooms. Tribal casinos like WinStar World Casino, Choctaw Casino, Mohegan Sun, and Foxwoods have poker rooms.
• Charitable Games: Charitable gaming takes many forms. In most places, charitable gaming organizations host bingo nights, but other forms of gambling are allowed. Not-for-profit charitable gaming organizations sometimes host Las Vegas Nights (Millionaire Clubs), raffles, bell jar competitions, pickle card contests, and pull-tab contests. Pickle cards and pull-tab tickets are similar in many ways to a lottery scratch-card. Bell Jar gaming is a kind of raffle.
• Bingo: Bingo is the most popular and widespread form of charitable gaming. Church groups, veterans’ groups, police and firefighter organizations, medical research groups, and civic organizations all host bingo nights. Organized bingo nights might be found in a dedicated bingo hall, a community center, or a VFW outpost; online bingo has become widely popular as well.
• Lotteries: State lotteries have existed since the early days of the United States. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress funded the war partly with lottery betting. In the latter half of the 20th century, many US states enacted state lotteries to produce public school funding and scholarship funding. Since the 1980s, the multistate lottery associations, Powerball and Mega Millions, have grown to include 44 US states apiece. State lotteries also sell scratch-cards, the best revenue producer.
• Sportsbooks: Legal sportsbooks are found in land-based casinos in Las Vegas. For the past 25 years, sports lotteries are legal in Delaware, Oregon, and Montana. After the US Supreme Court struck down the PASPA federal ban on sports betting in the 46 other US states, any US state can legalize sportsbooks. Delaware and New Jersey plan to open sportsbooks in the coming weeks, while 5 other US states have sportsbook legalization bills in committee. Lawmakers in 13 other US states are discussing the legalization of sports betting.
• Horse Racing: Horse racing has been legal in many US states for generations because betting on horses is considered a less dangerous form of gambling — and one wealthier Americans enjoy. Horse racing, harness racing, and greyhound racing involve pari-mutuel wagering, in which one bettor’s win means other bettors lose. The horse bettor competes against other bettors and not the racebook, though the bookmaker sets the odds based on betting volume for each horse. Off-track betting facilities now exist, with simulcast horse races and betting on historical horse races. Because the horse betting industry has struggled, many states now allow slot machine gambling at horse tracks.
• Online Casinos: Online casinos, poker sites, and sportsbooks were a huge industry in the USA until 2006 when the US Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. The UIGEA banned all forms of Internet gambling which were banned for interstate telephone lines under the 1961 Wire Act. From 2007 to 2011, this meant casino sites, online cardrooms, and bookmaker sites. A 2011 US Department of Justice opinion reversed the DOJ’s stance on online casinos and poker sites, so four US states now have legal online casinos and poker sites: New Jersey, Delaware, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. New York, California, and others might follow suit eventually. It is estimated that between 65% to 85% of casino revenue in the US comes from real money slots.
• Smartphone Betting: In most parts of the United States, mobile casino and poker sites are banned or unregulated. Now that sportsbooks are legal, live/in-play smartphone betting apps could become legal. Tom King of the Readyfire smartphone trivia apps says legal US sports betting will transform Android and iOS gaming apps in America.

Other Types of Wagering: Other forms of gambling takes place in the United States. 50 million Americans bet on Super Bowl office pools and March Madness brackets each year. Though it’s illegal, so many people engage in office betting that authorities look the other way in most cases. Fantasy football and fantasy baseball leagues involve small season-long wagers. In over a dozen US states, fantasy sports have been legalized, but in many other states, fantasy sports betting is allowed to happen. Some argue that daily fantasy sports gaming sites like FanDuel and DraftKings are sports wagering, but they exist in a gray area. Over a dozen US states have legalized DFS sites. Jai Alai is a legal form of sports betting in Connecticut and Florida.

Article ID: DE209 By: Rex M. Rogers

Summary

If baseball once was America’s national pastime, it’s been replaced by a $550 billion-per-year obsession — gambling. Gambling feeds the self-indulgent, instant-gratification mindset that has plagued America in recent decades. Beneath its glittery surface lurk the parallel tragedies of increasing addiction and a decreasing devotion to spirituality. Most Christian churches have been silent about gambling. Scripture is not. Even without a direct commandment, “Thou shalt not gamble,” the Bible offers numerous principles that militate against the practice. Informed Christians will challenge such social evils as state-sponsored gambling and the use of gambling for fundraising. Gambling is a bankrupt abandonment of reason and religion, and in the long run everyone loses.

Mark Twain shrewdly observed that “the best throw at dice is to throw them away.”¹ Americans no longer agree. Gambling is the newest Great American Pastime.

State lotteries began in 1964 with New Hampshire, and now bring in $30 billion per year in 37 states and the District of Columbia.² Some 55 million Americans play lotteries once per month, spending $88 million per day — more than they spend per day on groceries.³

What began as a trickle with state lotteries became a flash flood in 1988 when Native American tribes began taking advantage of the Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which permitted them to operate casinos on tribal lands. Nearly 300 Indian-run casinos now exist in 28 states with 186 of the 557 federally recognized tribes participating. About 30 casinos are opening per year,⁴ and additional tribes are vying for a stake in what some have called “the new buffalo.”⁵

Gambling expenditures now top $550 billion per year.⁶ That’s more money than Americans spend per year on films, books, amusements, and music entertainment combined. It’s about $1.5 billion per day or an increase of roughly 3,000 percent in the past 20 years.⁷

With the exception of horse and dog racing, gambling is increasing in every form. Riverboat, dockside, and other off-shore gambling enterprises, including cruise ships, are being proposed in several states as “limited” gambling.

Off-track, parimutuel, jai alai, keno, and video betting are also increasing. So are raffles and bingo. Business Week observed that gambling outlets are becoming “almost ubiquitous” as “mob-affiliated bookies and numbers runners are being supplanted by state governments, charitable and religious groups, and blue-chip entertainment-leisure conglomerates that say they’re in the ‘gaming’ business.”⁸

THE VICE OF CHOICE

Some 95 percent of American citizens have gambled at some time in their lives. About 82 percent have played the lottery, 75 percent have played slot machines, 50 percent have bet on horse or dog races, 44 percent have gambled with cards, and 34 percent gamble via bingo. Approximately 26 percent have bet on sports events. About 74 percent of the American adult population have gambled in casinos. Polls indicate that at least 89 percent of the American population approves of casino gambling.⁹

The acceptance of gambling into everyday life is a historic shift in cultural philosophy. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, professor William N. Thompson observed that “the era of expanded legalized gambling has coincided with a trend toward increased permissiveness in society. There certainly is a connection between attitudes about lifestyle, sex, pornography — even abortion and occasional drug use — and attitudes toward gambling. The notion that government has no business in our bedrooms relates to the notion that government has no business telling us how to spend our leisure time and our own money as long as we are doing so without coercion or harm to others.”¹⁰

The ethic of self-denial, saving, and capital accumulation is being replaced with a hedonistic consumerism, what Christopher Lasch called the “culture of narcissism.”¹¹ Deferred gratification is shelved in favor of instant demand. Americans want more, and they want it now.

Many Americans no longer work for future earthly or spiritual rewards. They only consume and receive less and less satisfaction from it.¹²

The philosophy of gambling undercuts one’s ability and desire to defer gratification in order to accomplish a goal. Individual enterprise, thrift, effort, and self-denial are set aside for chance gain, immediate satisfaction, and self-indulgence. In this sense, gambling exemplifies a reversal of American values.¹³

THIRD TIME’S A CHARM?

Whittier Law School gambling expert I. Nelson Rose believes a third wave of legalized gambling is washing over the United States.¹⁴ The first wave began in colonial America when lottery management companies took their place among the largest early-nineteenth-century businesses.¹⁵ A healthy economy together with lottery corruption contributed to the decline of legal lotteries by the 1820s.

The second wave of legal gambling began when Southern states looked for revenue after the Civil War. Gambling was a major diversion in late-nineteenth-century Western gold and silver mining camps. Legalized gambling’s second wave of popularity began losing strength in the 1880s with the Louisiana State Lottery scandal (in which local lottery fundraisers evolved into mail fraud and criminal interstate commerce involving corrupt government officials, intrigue, and murder). By 1894, state lotteries were condemned by law, and 36 states adopted antilottery text in their state constitutions.¹⁶

While gambling has been legal in (and largely limited to) Nevada since 1931, the third wave of legalized gambling in the United States began in 1964 with the inception of the New Hampshire State Lottery. By 1984, a majority of states had legalized lotteries.¹⁷

Bingo was legalized in 1937 in Rhode Island. Some 46 states, the District of Columbia, and all the Canadian provinces now have legalized bingo.¹⁸

Horse race betting is legal in 42 states and all Canadian provinces, dog race betting in 19 states, and jai alai games in four states. All 10 Canadian provinces and 48 American states now permit some form of legal gambling. By the year 2000, some experts have predicted that 40 percent of U.S. households will be participating in legalized commerical gambling.¹⁹

Legalized commercial gambling is now growing at breakneck speed, spurred by cash–hungry governments, gambling industry promotion of “gaming” as entertainment, and the appeal of new, high-tech video gambling. Some antigambling counselors believe that “decades of church–sponsored gambling [have] also tended to lend approval to games of chance.”²⁰

Only two states still maintain a no-legal-gambling policy: Hawaii and Utah. Hawaii debates the matter periodically. While 60 percent of Hawaiians polled favor a lottery, enough citizens are concerned about damaging the state’s image as an island paradise that lotteries and other commercial gambling are consistently rejected.²¹

Eugene Martin Christiansen, a gambling industry consultant, believes America’s new love affair with gambling “is part of a fundamental change that is irreversible at this point because the country is changing with fewer people going to church, more older people with time and money on their hands, and especially, with state lottery advertising campaigns that make it seem that buying lottery tickets is almost a patriotic duty.”²²

LOSING THE BET

Gambling is a spiritual and financial timebomb in a pretty package, and no demographic group is immune to the social pathologies associated with it.²³ Compulsive gambling is increasing rapidly in all population groups, even among teens.

The fastest growing “addiction” among high school and college-age young people is problem gambling, with as much as seven percent or 1.3 million teens considered addicted. Dr. Durand Jacobs, a pioneer in the treatment of problem gambling, believes the rate among teens is at least 10 percent, about twice the rate among adults.²⁴

Howard Schaffer, director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Addiction Studies, predicted, “We will face in the next decade or so more problems with youth gambling than we’ll face with drug use.”²⁵ The National Institute of Mental Health notes that “addiction” to gambling is growing fastest among teenagers.²⁶ Suicide rates are twice as high among teenagers with gambling problems,²⁷ and teenagers are nearly two-and-one-half times as likely as adults to become compulsive gamblers.²⁸

Durand Jacobs noted that “public understanding of gambling is where our understanding of alcoholism was some 40 or 50 years ago. Unless we wake up soon to gambling’s darker side, we’re going to have a whole new generation lost to this addiction.”²⁹

From lotteries in the 1960s to casinos in the 1990s, the gambling industry has grown more rapidly and more explosively than any business in American history. Legalized commercial gambling is now one of the largest industries in the U.S. leisure economy.³⁰

IT’S NOT IN THE CARDS

While the tidal wave of legalized commercial gambling has engulfed the country, the Christian community has greeted this development with a deafening silence. A few local battles have taken place, and during the past two years, Christian leaders such as Gary Bauer, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Ralph Reed have begun to speak out, but so far gambling has garnered very little national attention.

Several reasons may explain why Christians have been rather slow to respond to the spread of legalized commercial gambling:

1.) The conservative Christian “agenda” is packed, focusing on issues like abortion, pornography, crime, gun control, sex education, creationism, “family values,” and prayer in public schools.

2. Conservative Christians, particularly those who call themselves fundamentalists, have been historically reticent to “get involved in politics.”

3.There are no direct biblical commands declaring gambling a sin. And unlike narcotics, which exercise an immediate negative impact upon the user, the harmful effects of habitual gambling take longer to reveal themselves. Moral arguments against gambling are, therefore, more difficult to develop. In a recent survey, George Barna found that only 28 percent of “born again” Christians believe casinos should be illegal in the United States.³¹

4.) Christians are just as materialistic as everyone else. The lure of quick riches entices Christians to gamble too.

For these reasons as well as others, theological disapproval does not always translate to social or political opposition. Christians seem to be just as uninformed and unconcerned as everyone else.

THUS SAITH THE LORD

There is no “Eleventh Commandment” in the Bible saying “Thou shalt not gamble.” However, gambling violates at least five doctrines of Scripture: the sovereignty of God, stewardship, covetousness, brotherly love, and God’s instruction not to be brought under the power of anything.

Sovereignty of God

Belief in luck and belief in a sovereign God are mutually exclusive, for if an omniscient, omnipotent Creator God exists then luck makes no sense. Things don’t “just happen.” Nothing — including the secondary causes operative in the universe (the “laws” of nature and human choices) — happens outside of God’s will and disposition. So belief in God not only dispells any idea of luck, it also rejects any idea of chance as a determining factor in natural events or people’s destiny. “Depending upon luck and chance is a philosophy which deifies an impersonal view of life and of reality.”³² Any trust in luck rather than God is therefore a form of idolatry.

What appears to be chance to the finite human mind is known to a sovereign God. Casting of lots, for example, is a biblical illustration not of gambling (for no money or other value was placed at risk in hopes of greater gain) but of individuals trusting a sovereign God to direct the “chance” disposition or direction of the lay of the lots. People used “chance” to understand God’s will. Their faith was not in chance but in God. But belief in chance as fate stands in direct opposition to a purposeful creation, ordered and directed by the Sovereign God of the universe. Chance without God is the personification of anarchy and nihilism. God controls, not chance (Amos 3:6).³³

The idea that events are ultimately disposed merely by chance is akin to superstition. Pagan superstition is a violation of God’s will. Worshipping the gods of luck and chance is an offense to His character. Gambling is a kind of “secularized divination.”³⁴ It promotes a world view in direct contradiction to biblical Christianity.

Stewardship

God says in Proverbs that “he who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment” (12:11). People often chase fantasies, yielding to the lure of quick riches, the “something-for-nothing” enchantment. But God gives people time, talent, and treasure with an expectation of accountability (Matt. 25:14–30). The Bible teaches that we are to use our God–given wealth to support our families, God’s work, the government, and the needy.

Gambling can undermine the foundations of Christian stewardship — work, rationality, and responsibility. But work is both a command and a gift of God (2 Thess. 3:6–12). And reason is an essential part of being human. “Irresponsibility is man’s abdication of his humanity. We are made to be moral decision-making creatures.”³⁵

Covetousness

Gambling feeds covetousness, the opposite of God’s call for contentment (Phil. 4:11–12). It masquerades as harmless fun while it eventually sucks the dollars and sometimes the life out of those who embrace it (1 Tim. 6:6–10). The basis of all antigambling legislation is the necessity of curbing or controlling covetousness, the very natural and selfish desire to get something for nothing.³⁶

Love Thy Neighbor

Gambling creates a condition in which one person’s gain is necessarily many other persons’ loss. As such, gambling militates against brotherly love, justice, and mercy (Matt. 22:37–40; Mic. 6:8).

Gambling substitutes love of self or love of money for love of neighbor (Rom. 14:21; 15:1; 1 Tim. 6:6–10). Martin Luther said that “money won by gambling is not without self seeking and love of self is not without sin.”³⁷ Gambling, unlike legitimate business practices wherein both parties gain, creates a condition in which individuals are willingly duped of their resources in a something-for-nothing exchange.

To take from one’s neighbor in an unfair exchange is not love, to set up a system in which those least able to afford it lose their livelihood is not justice, and to continue operating a system that exploits human weakness while promoting personal pleasure and profit over others’ pain and loss is not mercy. While it is true that the legitimate marketplace can operate without regard for the Christian value of love of neighbor, this is not an essential and unavoidable character of business. In gambling, love of neighbor is not only impossible, it is systematically suppressed.

Mastery of the Will

Gambling is potentially habitual, what Pascal called a “fatal fascination,” like a moth’s fascination for the candle.³⁸ Some even label the problem an addiction. Yet God makes it clear in His Word that Christians are not to allow their minds or bodies to be mastered by anything other than the Holy Spirit of God (1 Cor. 6:12). Anything else leads to idolatry.

The Bible’s doctrines pertaining to the use of money indicate that morality and money are not mutually exclusive. God reveals the former so that mankind will know how to use the latter. Too often, though, people want the money without the morality.

Since governments are comprised of people, it should come as no surprise that they want money without morality too. In gambling, that’s exactly what they’ve got.

GOVERNMENT’S GOLDEN GOOSE

Governments are looking for easy money, so they sell their souls for a promise of riches. Whether government should enhance its revenues with gambling monies — the losses of its citizens — is a moral question, not just an economic one, no matter why people gamble. So far, except for a few scattered antigambling victories, money has bested morality in most contests for legislative hearts.

State government-sponsored gambling turns state government into a huckster. And legalization is followed by legitimation. Gambling is being socially legitimized by virtue of its governmental sanction. A one-time social evil is being transformed into acceptable social policy.

Governments facing budget deficits and antitax sentiment see gambling revenues as a painless panacea. States promote gambling, then use the revenues as a supplementary, “voluntary” tax. Gambling interests sell commercial gambling as a way of salvaging Rust Belt industrial cities.³⁹ Then they lure legislators and voters by associating gambling with some noble purpose like public education or better roads. Such arguments provide a politically palatable “moral justification” that helps dilute or mute opposition to gambling.

In practice, however, state legislatures time and again have refused to stick to promises of earmarked funds. Instead they let gambling revenues pay for promised public works and use general funds for other purposes. Gambling revenues become just another part of the state’s giant budgetary pie.⁴⁰

In the United States, gambling operations vigorously promote their games, and states are counted among the owners and promoters. There are no governmental restrictions on advertising, free alcohol as a stimulus to gambling, or access to credit on gambling casino premises.⁴¹

States do not simply accommodate peoples’ desire to gamble. They encourage gambling. In doing so, states foster superstitious, magical thinking.⁴²

Today, gambling is no longer just a periodic, if questionable, leisure activity fulfilling the purposes of a few individuals. Gambling is being changed into routine behavior that serves the economic ends of casino operators and state governments. The gambling industry now provides a transformed set of more aggressive, commercially profitable games aimed at a mass public.

State-sanctioned gambling has become little more than a set of gambling opportunities designed to produce maximum losses from the maximum number of people. Government has a vested interest in the losses of consumers. This together with the fact that, with a very few exceptions, no wealth is created by gambling means that state governments are no longer acting as representatives of the public interest.⁴³ State governments have joined the gambling industry in mass civic exploitation.

Crapped Out

Gambling associates itself with a number of social problems and pathologies, including alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution, violent crime, embezzlement and bankruptcy, theft, spouse and child abuse, and pornography and obscenity. This is why gambling is not a “victimless crime.” What appears to be harmless play with one’s own money becomes a destructive and costly influence on the person and the community.

Gambling sows the seeds of its own demise. Gambling begets gambling. It produces no new wealth.⁴⁴ The gambling industry is by nature parasitical and predatory. It cannibalizes rather than nurtures local economies and, worse, gambling operations frequently do so while claiming to benefit some universal good like education, economic progress, the environment, or the elderly. Gambling is a fiscal shell game.

So it’s something of a social and political disgrace to see America’s state and local governments buy into and promote gambling with the enthusiasm of pit bosses. It further gambles away the credibility of state and local governments at a time when Americans’ confidence in the efficacy of political institutions is already low.⁴⁵

Gambling creates so many negative side-effects that businesses will eventually be forced to look for nongambling states. Economist John Warren Kindt predicts that long-term, gambling-free states will enjoy proportionately fewer personal and business bankruptcies, stronger financial institutions, more vibrant economies, and better tourist, community, and business environments.⁴⁶

I. Nelson Rose says that legalized gambling tends to self-destruct. He believes that a cheating or corruption scandal will trigger the next gaming industry crash in about 35 years.⁴⁷

CasiNO!

A backlash may already be starting. During the past three years, gambling proponents have lost more initiatives than they’ve won. In particular, the National Association against Legalized Gambling, directed by Tom Grey, has been instrumental in winning some 47 statewide and congressional referenda and legislative battles in 27 different states, losing only three. In 1996, only one of seven statewide gambling referenda passed.⁴⁸

To turn the tide of legalized commercial gambling, I suggest that Christians (and other concerned citizens) work to do the following:

1.) Eliminate state government sponsorship and promotion of all forms of gambling. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: (1) States could privatize state lotteries, thereby getting states out of the ownership and advertising of gambling activities. (2) States could suspend state lotteries, lottos, and other forms of state-sponsored gambling, including race tracks.

Through astute state budgeting, legislators would be required to replace revenues currently generated by state gambling enterprises. In most cases, other state programs will either need to be eliminated or supported by tax increases because states have become dependent on gambling revenues. This, of course, can be politically painful. But it is no more so than the stressful political maneuvering and consensus building necessary to change or eliminate any other program already in the budget.

Even raising taxes is more acceptable than maintaining state lotteries and other gambling operations. It’s certainly more equitable than the support and promotion of games that pilfer money from the electorate.

2.) Stop state-approved expansion of legalized commercial gambling. At a minimum, state legislatures should appoint state gambling commissions charged with evaluating the impact of gambling, in particular casino gambling, on the state population and economy. Such commissions should seek independently generated data, not just information readily provided by the gambling industry.

Is Online Gambling Illegal In Us

A state ban on further approval and development of casino gambling would provide time for public and private agencies to study the economic and social impact of gambling on communities. It would also protect communities from the unrepresentative and unfair legal leverage available to Native American tribal groups under the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

3.) Legally clarify the 1988 Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. States should work toward preserving state and local authority as well as Native American citizens’ rights to free and fair access to the political process. Casino gambling discussions too frequently become entangled in a threefold cultural and legal web. One part is political correctness. A second is the legal morass enveloping Native American tribal sovereignty. And a third is latent public guilt for the sins, real and perceived, of 300 years of “American Indian policy.”

4.) Reduce nonprofit gambling for fundraising. This can be done fairly and in a manner that furthers the public interest. But the primary responsibility for reducing the use of gambling for fundraising lies with nonprofit organizations, including churches.

A nonprofit organization’s most precious resource is its reputation, for it is the public’s appreciation for a well-conceived mission that gets results that creates support for a cause. Gambling operations undercut the nonprofit organization’s humanitarian reputation and, therefore, diminish the organization’s moral credibility in the community it serves.

A CELEBRATION OF IRRATIONALITY

Gambling demands that the gambler abandon reason. It’s a venue of superstition, a religion-free religion. In a time when valuelessness is valued, gambling fits. In a culture that believes the universe began by chance and that existence and morality are nothing more than the “luck of the draw,” gambling is oddly logical. Gambling is the perfect postmodern pastime.

Gambling is correlated with social pessimism. It flourishes in cultures that no longer believe they can influence their present, much less their future. Gambling blossoms from a mood of despair, powerlessness, and hopelessness. Life is chance — a crap shoot.

Gambling is a metaphor for the current cultural Zeitgeist. It grows out of our cultural philosophy. Americans believe in a world of undefined chaos.

Every civilization in the past 500 years has sought to curtail gambling or its effects.⁴⁹ Why do Americans think we’re immune to the hazards of gambling? It is because Americans have embraced moral relativism, the postmodern belief in “mobile truths.” Increasing numbers of Americans no longer believe in absolute truth, in right and wrong. If God exists, He must not have anything to say to people. They reject Him, they reject His Word, and they reject His morality. The only thing left is uncertainty — and luck.

For many Americans gambling has become a surrogate religion; a pathological hope; a concession to life based on luck; an admission that there is nothing to life but determinism, fatalism, nihilism.

But gambling is rabbit’s foot religion. It’s postmodern paganism. Gambling asks people to play the odds, and always, in the long run, gambling wins.

Rex M. Rogers is president of Cornerstone College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and author of Seducing America: Is Gambling a Good Bet? (Baker Book House, 1997).

NOTES

¹Norman L. Geisler with Thomas A. Howe, Gambling a Bad Bet: You Can’t Win for Losing in More Ways Than You Can Imagine (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1990), 73.²William N. Thompson, Legalized Gambling: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1994), 3.³John Wheeler, “Losers,” Charisma, September 1997, 71.⁴“Too Many Casinos,” Grand Rapids Press, 6 October 1997, sect. A; Joseph P. Shapiro, “America’s Gambling Fever,” U.S. News and World Report, 15 January 1996, 59; and Bob Kolasky, “Issues of the Week: Fighting Long Odds,” www.Intellectualcapital.com, 11 September 1997, 2. ⁵Eugene Martin Christiansen and Will E. Cummings, “Double-Edged Growth,” International Gaming and Wagering Business Magazine, 1 August 1995, 31–32.⁶Kolasky, 1; and Martin Koughan, “Easy Money,” Mother Jones, July–August 1997, 32.⁷Frank Rich, “America on Big Bender with Gaming,” Las Vegas Sun, 10 May 1996, sect. B. Christiansen and Cummings, 31–32.⁸Chris Welles, “America’s Gambling Fever,” Business Week, 24 April 1989, 112–13.⁹Report of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Michigan Gaming, Robert J. Danhof, chairman, April 1995, 15. Shapiro, 55.¹⁰Thompson, 13.¹¹Vicki Abt, James F. Smith, and Eugene Martin Christiansen, The Business of Risk: Commercial Gambling in Mainstream America (Lawerence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 22.¹²Ibid., 198–99.¹³Ibid., 22.¹⁴James Popkin with Katia Hetter, “America’s Gambling Craze,” U.S. News and World Report, 14 March 1994, 46; Thompson, 6.¹⁵Report of the Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling, Charles H. Morin, chairman (Washington, D. C., 15 October 1976), 18–107.¹⁶Rufus King, Gambling and Organized Crime (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1969), 74.¹⁷In 1969, Canada followed suit by changing its criminal code to allow lotteries and charitable gambling. (Thompson, 8.) Mexico is also flirting with expanded legalized gambling. Casino gambling is being considered in at least 10 major cities and resort destinations. While a national lottery, horse racing, sports betting, and cockfighting have been available for years, the Mexican Congress outlawed casino gambling in the 1930s. Most Mexicans don’t want expanded legalized casinos, however. A poll in The Mexico CityReforma indicated that 68 percent oppose, and 30 percent favor, casinos. See Hayes Ferguson, “Mexico Officials Debate Legalizing Casino Gambling to Aid Economy,” The Grand Rapids Press, 12 November 1995, sect. A.¹⁸Christiansen and Cummings, 31–32; Thompson, 3.¹⁹Thompson, 3.²⁰“Gambling Addiction Near Epidemic,” The Bottom Line on Alcohol in Society (journal published by the Alcohol Research Information Service, Lansing, MI) 14 (Spring 1993): 1, 7.²¹Matthew Brown, “Gaming Industry Has No Chance in Utah,” The Grand Rapids Press, 5 May 1996, sect. A.²²Cited in David Johnston, Temples of Chance (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 20.²³Adolescent Compulsive Gambling: The Hidden Epidemic (The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, n.d.)²⁴Ricardo Chavira, “The Rise of Teenage Gambling,” Time (25 February 1991), 78. J. Taylor Buckley, “Nation Raising ‘A Generation of Gamblers,’” USA Today (5 April 1995), 1A.²⁵Report of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission, 15; Laurel Shaper Walter, “More Teens Play Games of Chance,” The Christian Science Monitor, 25 April 1990, 16.²⁶Report of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission, 15.²⁷“Teen Gambling: Hidden Habit, Public Problem,” USA Today, 5 April 1995, sect. A. This research established correlation between gambling and suicide, but not causality.²⁸Chavira, 78. ²⁹Ibid., 78.³⁰Christiansen and Cummings, 31–32.³¹Ron Reno, “Gambling with America,” Christian American, July-August 1996, 25.³²Larry Braidfoot, Gambling: A Deadly Game (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1985), 182.³³R. H. Charles, Gambling and Betting: A Study Dealing with Their Origins and Their Relation to Morality and Religion (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1924), 61.³⁴James Hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1913), 163.³⁵Lycurgus M. Starkey, Jr., Money, Mania, and Morals: The Churches and Gambling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1964), 112.³⁶Francis Emmett Williams, Lotteries, Law, and Morals (New York: Vantage Press, 1958), 76.³⁷Lyaugus M. Starkey, Jr., Money Mania and Morals: The Churches and Gambling, [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1964], 37.³⁸Starkey, 27.³⁹This is one of the central premises of Robert Goodman, The Luck Business: The Devastating Consequences and Broken Promises of America’s Gambling Explosion (New York: The Free Press, 1995).⁴⁰Thompson, 42.⁴¹See Rex M. Rogers, Seducing America: Is Gambling a Good Bet? (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997), 91–92; Abt, Smith, and Christiansen, 76–77.⁴²Charles T. Clotfelter and Philip J. Cook, Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 70.⁴³Abt, Smith, and Christenson, 37, 174–75, 213–15.⁴⁴Goodman, 163–66.⁴⁵This point has been well known to political scientists for more than two decades. Most recently it was highlighted on Wolf Blitzer, Inside Politics, Weekend, CNN, 10 January 1998.⁴⁶John Warren Kindt, “The Negative Impacts of Legalized Gambling on Businesses,” Business Law Journal 4 (Spring, 1994): 93-124.⁴⁷Popkin and Hotter, 46⁴⁸“Legalized Gambling on a Losing Streak,” http:// www.Iquest.net/cpage/ncalg/gambling.html (2 June 1997), 1–4.⁴⁹Charles, 10.