Current Events: Gambling & the Law - Civics Learning Project

The United States’ history with legalized gambling demonstrates the complications of a fundamental constitutional issues, federalism.

Lotteries had been a source of revenue to help fund each of the original 13 colonies, but these practices were later banned by the British. After the American Revolution, Virginia and other Southern states had some horse race betting, mostly for the elites before the economic collapse after the Civil War. In New Orleans, riverboat casinos were tolerated, even when religious groups stopped gambling on shore. And for a while, San Francisco’s Gold Rush created a culture of gambling in the frontier city. Illegal gambling was prevalent in cities like Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City in private clubs or informal Red Light Districts with bribes largely keeping law enforcement from interfering. Some states allowed regional gambling centers like Miami, Galveston, Detroit, and Hot Springs, Arkansas.

In order to stimulate its economy during the Great Depression, Nevada became the first state to widely legalize casino gambling in 1931 and stood alone until New Jersey legalized casino gambling in 1976 in Atlantic City. Maryland allowed slot machines. The Seminole and Cabazon Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s affirmed that Native American tribes could run gambling operations and reservation casinos became common in recent decades.

The advent of the Internet massively expanded access to gambling – especially sports betting.

Following a federal ban from 1992 to 2018, Nevada remained the only state with legal single-game sports betting for a long time. Then, in 2018, the ruling in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association opened up state-authorized sports betting nationwide and Delaware became the first state to offer single-game sports betting after the ruling. Now, internet sports betting is legal in 31 states and DC. Major national brands such as DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, and ESPN BET operate under state-issued licenses.

According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, an estimated 2.5 million U.S. adults have a severe gambling problem and another 5-8 million have mild or moderate gambling problems. Young people are more at risk of gambling addiction because their prefrontal cortexes aren’t fully-developed, making it harder to assess risk and resist temptation, as gambling also stimulates the brain with a dopamine ‘hit’. And gambling is now common in young people: between 60 percent and 80 percent of high school students report having gambled for money in the past year.

In Oregon, gambling was legalized before it was allowed in many other states. Though the 1992 US Congress banned sports betting, Oregon was allowed to continue its existing games. In 1984 Oregon revived the lottery tradition, with 66% of voters approving a 1984 constitutional amendment to create The Oregon Lottery. Revenue from the state lottery is used to fund Oregon schools and educational opportunities like Outdoor School, as well as state parks, and Veterans’ services. Oregonians debate the benefits of gambling operations revenue generation against the negative impacts on mental health and vice it can promote.

According to the latest Pew Research survey, 43% of U.S. adults say sports betting is a bad thing for society and 40% of adults now say it’s a bad thing for sports. This week’s current event looks at the background of sports betting and recent scandals in the abuse of such bets.

Essential Questions:

Essential Question #1 – How has legal gambling increased over time in the United States?

Essential Question #2 – Why would states want to legalize gambling?

Essential Question #3 – What are the impacts caused by legalized gambling?

Essential Question #4 – Do you think gambling laws should be decided by the national or state governments? Explain.

Vocabulary:

lottery – a means of raising money by selling numbered tickets and giving prizes to the holders of numbers drawn at random
casino – a public room or building where gambling games are played
sports betting – wagering money on predicted sports outcomes, with odds determining potential payouts
prop bet – betting on an individual athlete’s performance statistics, also known as proposition bet
problem gambling – gambling behavior that is damaging to a person or their family, often disrupting their daily life and career, and is a recognized mental health diagnosis

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