View in Canal Street, New Orleans, 1857
Games of chance have a very ancient history and came to the colonies with the first settlers.[1] Attitudes on gambling varied greatly from community to community but there were no large-scale restrictions on the practice. Early on the British colonies all used lotteries from time to time to raise revenue. A 1769 restriction on lotteries by the British crown in fact became an issue that helped fuel the tensions that led to the American Revolution.[2]
Lotteries continued to be used at the state and federal level in the early republic.[1] Casino businesses slowly developed in various communities. The lower Mississippi River valley became a hotbed of gambling activity with New Orleans emerging as the nation's leading gaming center. A wave of hostility against gambling in the mid 19th century pushed a lot of gambling activity onto the Mississippi river boats and toward younger territories in the West. Anti-gambling forces in the northeast put an end to lotteries there and this trend spread to some other parts of the country. The rise of railroads caused passenger travel on the Mississippi to decline decimating gambling there. The increasing legal pressures on gambling gradually created opportunities for illegal operations.
With the advent of the California Gold Rush, San Francisco became a populous town flush with gold-laden propectors. By the 1850s the new city on western coast had overtaken New Orleans as the gaming capital of the nation. As California gradually strengthened its laws and policing of gambling the practice similarly went underground.
Lotteries and other forms of gambling would be revived temporarily in the South during Reconstruction, and in other areas, but by the early 20th century gambling was almost uniformly outlawed throughout the U.S. Gambling became a largely illegal activity helping to spur the growth of the mafia and other organized crime.
During the Prohibition era illegal liquor provided an additional revenue stream for mob figures, and organized crime blossomed. Towns which had already had lax attitudes about vice such as Miami, Florida; Galveston, Texas; and Hot Springs, Arkansas became major gaming centers attracting tourism from around the nation.[3] The Great Depression saw the legalization of some forms of gambling such as bingo in some cities to allow churches and other groups to raise revenue, but most gambling remained illegal. Major gangsters became wealthy from casinos and speakeasies. As legal pressures began to rise in many states, gangsters in New York and other states looked toward Texas, California, and other more tolerant locales to prosper.
In 1931 Nevada legalized most forms of gambling. Interest in development in the state was slow at first as the state itself had a limited population. After World War II enforcement of gambling laws became more strict in most places and the desert town of Las Vegas became an attractive target for investment by crime figures such as New York's Bugsy Siegel. The town rapidly developed during the 1950s dooming some illegal gambling empires such as Galveston. Nevada, and Las Vegas in particular, became the center of gaming in the U.S. In the 1960s Howard Hughes and other legitimate investors purchased many of the most important hotels and casinos in the city gradually reducing the city's connections to organized crime.
In 1978 New Jersey legalized gambling in Atlantic City. The city rapidly grew into a significant tourist destination, revitalizing what was previously largely a run-down slum community. In 1979, the Seminole tribe opened the first reservation-based commercial gambling beginning a trend that would be followed by other reservations.[4] Gradually lotteries and some types of pari-mutuel betting were legalized in other areas of the country.
In the 1990s riverboat casinos were legalized in Louisiana, Illinois, and other states. In 1996 Michigan legalized gambling in the city of Detroit creating a economic center for potential casino growth. The past two decades have seen the explosion of internet gambling.
References
- ^ a b "History of Gambling in the United States". Gambling in California. California State Library. March 1997.
- ^ Daniels, Bruce Colin (1995). Puritans at play: leisure and recreation in colonial New England. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 182. ISBN 978-0312125004.
- ^ Dombrink, John; Thompson, William Norman (1990). The last resort: success and failure in campaigns for casinos. University of Nevada Press. p. 176.
- ^ a b c d e Johansen, Bruce. The Praeger Handbook on Contemporary Issues in Native America, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007.
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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