Those living in the instability of a democracy have the
constant image of chance before them, and, in the end, come
to like all those projects in which chance plays a part.
—Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Men and women dressed in their Sunday best form
a long line that runs from the doors of the casino riverboat
to a distant parking lot. Dressed in a suit and tie,
I walk past the job seekers. Some offer “Morning suh,”
thinking, perhaps, that I am the Boss Man in charge of
hiring. I am not.
“Long line of folks out there looking for work,” I offer
to Al Weeks, the food and beverage director of the
Biloxi, Mississippi casino.
Al, a thoughtful and religious man, thinks for a moment
and then says, “If they are like yesterday’s applicants,
half of them can’t read or write. It’s so sad. Even a
cook has to be able to read a server’s instructions. Well,
let’s talk about the implementation schedule….”
In the early 1990s, destitute Mississippi, hoping to
attract out-of-state visitors with money to spend, legalized
gambling, provided
the venue was not on land.
From the sultry Gulf shores
of Biloxi and Bay St. Louis,
northward along the river
to the cotton fields of the
Mississippi Delta, casino
operators built and then
docked huge ships that
went nowhere. “Going to
bring our state lots of tax revenues and jobs,” the state
of Mississippi promised the locals.
Twenty years have now passed, long enough time
for us to review those words, and we will. We will also
consider how gambling, a pastime that was viewed
as sleazy and unsavory activity as late as the mid-
1960s, became so mainstream. Warning! If you wish to
criticize the very notion of gambling, you are not quibbling
with me, a harmless earthbound observer, but
with the heavens.
Egyptians claim that the god, Thoth, invented gambling.
In Greek mythology, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon
played ‘throw the dice’ in order to divvy up the universe.
Fortuna was the Roman goddess of good luck
and chance. The tenth mandala of the Rig Vedas—the
“gambler’s hymn”—is said to have been composed by
a gambling sage who had lost everything through dice.
Gambling, whether with cards or dice, animal fights
or human sports, is as old as the gods and as ingrained
in the world’s cultures as much as wheat, rice, and sex.
Now let’s consider the diverse nature of America’s
earliest immigrants. Along with their suitcases, dreams,
and gods, they packed their games of chance. Ah, but
the best games of the “old country” may not measure
up in the new! As David G. Schwartz writes:
Gambling in America predated the republic of
the United States by several thousand years,
and Americans fused several traditions—European,
Native American, and African—into a
larger gambling culture that, with advances in
transportation and communications, would
spread throughout the world.
How American! The Melting Pot takes the best
games from each culture, and then we cleverly create
and exploit worldwide markets! Viva Las Vegas!
But I am getting way ahead of myself. Not all of our
early settlers were thrilled with the activity.
The painful and tedious
17th century Puritan
clergyman, Increase
Mather, denounced gambling
as “heinously sinful.”
Yawn. Despite his stern
words, many Puritan settlers
continued their wicked
ways. In 1646, when
Massachusetts passed a
law that banned gambling in public houses, the people
interpreted the edict as a suggestion.
In the 1770s, we hear George Washington saying
that gambling is “the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity,
and the father of mischief.”
Oh dear.
From 1772 to 1775, General George kept very detailed
accounts of his own results—at the card tables.
Showing superior leadership qualities, in 1776 he ordered
that, “All officers, non-commissioned officers,
and soldiers are positively forbid playing at cards, or
other games of chance.”
Alexander Hamilton, eventually our nation’s first
Secretary of the Treasury, even floated the idea of running
a lottery to support our troops during the Revolutionary
War.
After the Brits were sent back to their island
home, all 13 colonies established lotteries to help raise
revenues. Ivy League schools, including Harvard, Yale,
and Princeton, did the same. Benjamin Franklin, John
Hancock, and George Washington endorsed specific
lotteries for public works projects. No such nicely
organized and orderly events were taking place in the
lawless lands west of the Appalachians where guns
in the coats and cards up the sleeves were the weapons
of choice. Schwartz writes:
New Orleans remained the nation’s gambling
capital into the 1830s, though Mobile, Alabama,
ran a close second. From New Orleans, professional
gamblers fanned the length of the Mississippi
and Ohio Rivers, and nearly every river
town had a red-light district where gamblers,
thieves, assassins, and prostitutes waited to
entertain….
By the time that the Vicksburg Volunteers declared
war on gambling in their town, it was
estimated that between one thousand and
fifteen hundred professionals worked the
steamboats that plied the Mississippi and
Ohio between New Orleans and Louisville.
The “Riverboat Gambler” is one of the most colorful
and iconic figures in American history and culture.
The Civil War, which disrupted trade between the
North and South, certainly impacted the gambling industry,
as did a series of scandals. If there is one constant
theme in the history of American gambling it is
this: Growth, followed by scandal and outrage (Mississippi-1800s, Las Vegas-1950s), industry contraction, and
then growth.
When I was born, there were no legal, government-sponsored
lotteries operating in the United States, nor
was it possible to legally gamble without going to a
church bingo game or traveling to Las Vegas. But today,
over 40 states sell lottery tickets and legalized gambling
is as near as a computer. Why the change?
Take a bow, Elvis Presley.
Some believe the King’s 1972 performance at the
Las Vegas Hilton began the process of redefining what
was once a vice—a trip to “Sin City”—to a respectable
evening of entertainment. Las Vegas added convention
hotels, and what was once seedy slowly became mainstream.
Other fading cities, most notably, Atlantic City,
New Jersey, took note. Our country’s state governments,
wishing to raise money but not taxes, approved and
then operated lotteries.
Today, more than half of all adults say they play the
lottery and more than a quarter regularly visit casinos.
Those of us who enjoy watching professional football
games on television are now subjected to numerous
commercials encouraging us to visit gambling websites
to test our “skills.” Gambling is now as American
as “apple pie and the girl next door.”
And what of Mississippi, now two decades after
gambling was legalized?
Some say the casinos have helped reduce poverty,
others say, no, not so fast. Revenues that approached
$3 billion in 2007 have now fallen to near $2 billion. The
promised prosperity for all helped a few local people,
but certainly not all. According to the Washington Post,
of the hundreds of millions of dollars that Tunica, Mississippi
earned from gambling between 1993 and 2015,
just a sliver—about 2.5 percent—was used on social
programs to help the poor.
My last business trip to Mississippi occurred in
1995, a few years after gambling had been legalized. After
a brief business meeting, I took Al Weeks to lunch.
“Why are you here, Al?” He and his wife Donna had
left prosperous and cultured Minneapolis, for this interesting
but poverty stricken land?
“Donna asks me the same question. Some days, I
wonder, too. I know you are a religious person so maybe
my answer will make sense. I feel like I have been
called by God to serve the people of this community,
that’s why I’m here. Been here close to a year, but I don’t
think I am making a damn bit of difference, to anyone.”
A few years later, knowing I would be in nearby New Orleans, I called Al’s secretary, Ruby, to see if I
might drop by for a visit.
“I am sorry Bill, but Al and Donna moved back
to Minnesota.”
I mentioned to Ruby how much I enjoyed Al’s company
and then recounted my last conversation with
him. She paused. She was crying.
“Al touched more people than he will ever realize.
He helped those people who could not read or write.
He gave encouragement to those who felt helpless.
And he meant more to me than I ever let on. When my
only brother died, Al became my new brother. He listened
and he cared. Every now and then I talk to him—he and Donna are back in Minnesota and doing well.”
“Please tell him I said hello,” I replied, and then
hung up the phone. In the simmering heat of a Gulf
Coast afternoon, one of my favorite journeys ended.
Americana is a monthly column highlighting
the cultural and historical nuances of this land
through the rich storytelling of columnist Bill Fitzpatrick,
author of the books, Bottoms Up, America
and Destination: India, Destiny: Unknown.