When the country was young, and law enforcement was sometimes far away, gambling flourished around America. The gaming parlors often started small, but as time went on, they became larger and more established. Those who came west to try to make their luck in the gold fields of California -- a gamble of another sort -- often turned to games involving cards and dice. In communities where men outnumbered women, it was a way of passing the time. Those who had made money prospecting for gold aimed to make more at the card table; those who had not struck it rich with a pick and a shovel aimed to use their skills with the cards to finance their passage home.

As the country changed, as mines played out and as the Wild West grew tamer, communities changed their attitudes about gambling, and the practice was, for the most part, prohibited, though some venues continued to operate outside the law. In the silver state of Nevada, old timers looked back wistfully on those earlier times, and decided that if they couldn't bring the silver mines back, they could bring the gambling back. Las Vegas and other cities in Nevada became glittering beacons, drawing high rollers in from around the world.

As attitudes against gambling eventually softened, other states began to look at the success of the Nevada experience and tried to re-create that success other places. In the 1970s, Atlantic City brought gamblers to the East Coast; soon other states began to permit casino gambling and riverboat gambling.

Indian Gaming Regulatory Act

In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), which permitted casinos on land controlled by Native American tribes. This statute was designed to bring an influx of money into areas controlled by native tribes, which in recent years have experienced poverty well above the national average. The experiment has been, for the most part, successful. The tribal casinos have injected new money into sagging economies, and they have provided jobs to a large number of previously unemployed or underemployed people.

Two of the largest casinos in the world are located on tribal land that, until a few years ago, was a relatively sleepy corner of Connecticut. Nearly every population center in the country is now within easy driving distance of a casino, thanks, in part, to the IGRA.