Gambling in The United States - History

History

Games of chance first came to the British American colonies with the first settlers. Attitudes on gambling varied greatly from community to community, but there were no large-scale restrictions on the practice. Early on, the British colonies used lotteries from time to time to help raise revenue. For example, lotteries were used to establish or improve dozens of universities and hundreds of secondary schools during the 18th and 19th centuries. A 1769 restriction on lotteries by the British crown became one of many issues which fueled tensions between the Colonies and Britain prior to the American Revolution.

Lotteries continued to be used at the state and federal level in the early United States. Gambling 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 gambling activity onto boats in the Mississippi River and toward younger territories in the West. Anti-gambling forces in the northeast put an end to lotteries in those locations and this trend spread to some other parts of the country. The rise of railroads caused passenger travel on the Mississippi to decline, heavily damaging the riverboat casinos' revenue. The increasing legal pressures on gambling gradually created opportunities for illegal operations.