Gambling: Who Wins? Who Loses? / Edition 1

by Gerda Reith

Overview

Gambling is a topic that can arouse a wide range of passionate and often controversial opinions. Is it a harmless pastime or a dangerous addiction? Does it corrupt the state or contribute much-needed funds to local communities? Whether we like it or not, gambling is now a major economic force in the United States. It pays $2.9 billion in taxes, creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, and as an industry has expanded tenfold in the last twenty-five years.
This book provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking collection of articles by internationally recognized experts in the study of gambling—doctors and lawyers, journalists and academics. It presents a diverse range of perspectives on the issue of gambling: from legal, political, and economic, to social, psychological, and ethical. Although many of the essays are strongly argued, the collection as a whole offers a balanced range of viewpoints and arguments, allowing reades to decide for themselves what role gambling should play in our society. Among the topics discussed are casino gambling and crime, the expansion of wagering on the Internet, the role of federal and state governments, the nature and extent of gambling addiction, Native American gambling, and the role of gambling in various parts of the world.
The stimulating, jargon-free articles in this entertaining and informative volume will help clarify one of the most important debates of our time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781591020738
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/01/2003
Series:	Contemporary Issues Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Gerda Reith, Ph.D., is assistant professor in sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and the author of The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture, which won the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize of 2000.

Editorial Reviews

Reith (sociology, Univ. of Glasgow) has collected a book of essays by British and American scholars that could serve as a particularly intelligent accompaniment to a course about gambling. With a focus on gambling in the United States, the seven sections-covering trends, costs and benefits, law and crime, addiction debate, problem gambling, psychological and environmental factors, and ethical and philosophical issues-each have two to four essays by authoritative voices, among them the editor of the Journal of Gambling Studies, the director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, and NYU professor Jerome Skolnick. The legalization of gambling in its various forms during the past 30 years has, according to the 1999 U.S. National Gambling Impact Study, created a seismic shift in attitudes. Reith's earlier monograph, The Age of Chance, and now this collection are the best attempts to come to grips with the changed attitudes. Reith continues to be interested not only in the facts of gambling but also in how we interpret it to ourselves. This title may appeal to the general reader but is essential for social science, criminal justice, and ethics collections.-Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice Lib., CUNY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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