High Stakes: The Rising Cost of America's Gambling Addiction

Sam Skolnik

Jul 2011 · Sold by Beacon Press

About this eBook

What the explosive growth of legalized gambling means socially, politically, and economically for America.

Forty years ago, casinos were legal in just one state. Today, legalized gambling has morphed into a $119 billion industry established in all but two states. As elected officials are urging voters to expand gambling’s reach, the industry’s supporters and their impassioned detractors are squaring off in prolonged state-by-state battles. Millions of Americans are being asked to decide: are the benefits worth the costs?
 
With a blend of investigative journalism and poignant narratives of gambling addiction, award-winning journalist Sam Skolnik provides an in-depth exploration of the consequences of this national phenomenon. In High Stakes, we meet politicians eager to promote legalized gambling as an economic cure-all, scientists wrestling with the meaning of gambling addiction, and players so caught up in the chase that they’ve lost their livelihoods and their minds.

Ratings and reviews

I found this book to be interesting throughout. The writer, a journalist and a noted poker professional, has done a very good job of accumulating data on gambling, mostly in the United States, but elsewhere also, especially Asian countries. One chapter is devoted to Asian American gamblers. I myself have never gambled, except maybe as a kid. I stay at casinos because the room rates are cheap, and sometimes the restaurant food is cheap, but I just walk through the casinos and shake my head. Like, "my, my, what do these people get out of this?" Well, Skolnik tries to explain it. There is a rush, of a sort, dopamine secretions, similar to those of a cocaine user. In other words, there's a biochemical explanation, and this does not depend on winning or losing money, apparently, though I'm sure the rush is greater if a person wins. Skolnick mentions economist Paul Samuelson's early view (1948), that gambling is a non-productive activity, and does not really contribute to a society's gross national product in any way. He also mentions Freud's explanation of gambling, as a form of mental masturbation. But I think Skolnik is being naive, or maybe intentionally so (since he wanted to make a point in his book), thinking that any group or individual, even the government, can stop the spread of gambling in the U.S. Let's face it, most Americans have plenty of disposable income to gamble with, but even if they don't, they won't do menial jobs to earn it. Americans are pretty pampered and no one is going to keep them from their delights, be it drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, eating, or gambling. If they can't get it legally, they'll get it otherwise. Some reviewers on Amazon complained that Skolnik offered no solutions after raising so many problems. But if 1% of Americans are sick gamblers, and another couple percent are problem gamblers, that means that about 95% of Americans are neither of these. Now, usually a problem has to be more extensive to really cause a public outcry or alarm. Still, it's up to each individual, as it should be, to make the choice to gamble or not. It doesn't matter if the casino is next door or 400 miles away: if the individual wants to gamble, he or she will, and if the individual chooses not to gamble, he or she will do that. I agree with the gambling industry in this, as Skolnik presents in in this book: We can't really help people who become addicts. Only they themselves can help themselves, each individual working only on himself or herself. Although it may be triggered by biochemistry, it's still an individual choice. That's why people can stop gambling after years of it, as Skolnik points out, or come to view gambling as a past time or a hobby, but not a consuming way of life, even after years of having it consume their lives. This book will make you think and it's well worth reading, or at least speed reading. You can skip some of the data, as the numbers tend to get foggy after a while for the general reader (me). I slogged through them but I can't remember most of them, his data points, I mean.

About the author

Sam Skolnik began his journalism career as a news aide and freelance writer for the Washington Post. He went on to report for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Las Vegas Sun and has also written about gambling for the New York Times and Salon.