Gambling In The United States
Gambling is legally restricted in the United States, but its availability and participation is increasing. In 2007, gambling activities generated gross revenues (the difference between the total amounts wagered minus the funds or "winnings" returned to the players) of $92.27 billion in the United States. Commercial casinos provided 354,000 jobs, and state and local tax revenues of $5.2 billion as of 2006. Critics of gambling claim it leads to increased political corruption, compulsive gambling and higher crime rates. Others claim that gambling is a type of regressive tax on the individuals in local economies where gambling venues are located.
Read more about Gambling In The United States: Gambling Revenues, History, Authorized Types, Legal Issues, Commercial Casinos, American Indian Gaming, Lotteries, Recriminalization
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“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Someone once asked me why women don’t gamble as much as men do, and I gave the common-sensical reply that we don’t have as much money. That was a true but incomplete answer. In fact, women’s total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
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—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)