THE BOOK

Legalized gambling has grabbed hold of America’s consciousness. Over the last four decades, it’s rooted itself in scores of cities and towns in every region of the country – including many that never before have had to deal directly with the fallout.

State governments have brought commercial casinos, card rooms and slot machines by the thousands into their jurisdictions. Native American tribes have renegotiated compacts in more than two dozen states to allow for new casinos. The poker craze has proved amazingly durable. Forty-five states each currently sponsor heavily promoted lotteries.

Internet gambling drew millions of Americans to their computers before the federal government in 2011 effectively shut down the top sites – a setback online gambling proponents are working hard to overturn to allow more people to gamble legally through online casinos and poker rooms.

Most recently, gambling backers have scored several big wins through the fast growth of online and in-person sports betting. Legal wagering on sports for decades was limited primarily to Nevada. As of late 2022, 31 states plus Washington DC allowed it.

More than 20 million American adults were set to bet $1.8 billion on the 2022 World Cup alone, including a whopping 9.8 million who planned to bet on the soccer tournament online and another 4.7 million inside casino sportsbooks, according to the American Gaming Association.

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There was a significant cost to this rise in legalized gambling, even before sports betting proliferated.

In 2014, for example, Americans lost $142 billion gambling – a shocking 13 times what we lost in 1982.

Because of this unrelenting growth, millions of us for the first time have been exposed to gambling. As a result, there’s been an increase in the number of addicted gamblers around the country.

This growth has resulted in higher social costs we all pay for, from rising indebtedness, bankruptcies and home foreclosures to increases in gambling-related crimes such as burglaries and domestic violence, and in the worst cases, suicides.

The Great Recession, and more recently the Covid-19 pandemic, only thickened the plot. Desperate state officials facing unprecedented budget shortfalls turned to legalized gambling as a panacea. As elected officials urge voters to grow gambling’s reach, the industry’s supporters and their equally impassioned detractors have been squaring off in prolonged state-by-state battles. In 2009-2010, for example, officials in three out of four states pushed to expand legalized gambling, often successfully.

The last decade-plus since High Stakes was released has proved to be the busiest yet for gambling supporters and their lobbyists intent on legalizing wagering everywhere they can. Pro-gambling interests pressured state legislators across the country to approve new casinos, slot parlors and other gambling venues. At the ballot box, millions of Americans were asked to decide: Are the benefits worth the costs?

Industry officials and their political allies claim gambling is an effective way to raise revenue and create jobs. But in High Stakes, I show how the costs are outweighing the benefits.

I illustrate how gambling has helped turn Las Vegas into America’s most dysfunctional community, and how the upsurge of poker and Internet gambling is creating a new generation of gambling junkies. I show how the gambling industry is targeting Asian Americans – a population that, more than any other ethnic group, is likely to develop gambling problems.

And I detail how the casino industry has cornered the market on gambling research in the United States – and the risks this poses toward finding out the truth about gambling's real impacts on American society.

I tell this tale in large part through dozens of gripping individual stories – including those of politicians and researchers; gambling industry officials and anti-gambling activists; problem gambler advocates; and of course, addicted gamblers and their families.

High Stakes isn't a memoir. But I felt it was important that I also tell a small part of my personal story. Over the last couple decades, I have become an avid poker player. I’ve become good at the game. Yet my gambling has at times become a destructive force in my life. My hope is that my passion for the topic, both as a gambler and long-time journalist, helps to inform the book.

Thanks for your interest,

Sam Skolnik

Note from the author: This website was updated in January of 2023.