Gambling (redirected from bettor)

gambling or gaming, betting of money or valuables on, and often participation in, games of chance (some involving degrees of skill). In England and in the United States, gambling was not a common-law crime if conducted privately. Even in colonial America, however, gambling was liable to rankle public opinion because it was often associated with rowdy activities and could produce debtors who would burden society.

In the United States, state laws largely govern gambling. Some states prohibit public wagers or betting by minors, while others allow wagering up to a certain amount. In some states parimutuel betting on horse races at the tracks is legal; several states permit parimutuel betting on dog races and jai alai games, and most states operate or participate in daily and weekly lotteries. Though all of these state-sanctioned forms may conflict with public opinion on the moral and economic worth of gambling, all provide state and local governments with large revenues. The first legalized offtrack betting system (OTB) in the United States opened in New York City in 1971.

Nevada was the first state to sanction many types of gambling, with casinos operating slot machines, card games, and various games of chance. For many years, Nevada (joined in 1978 by Atlantic City, N.J.) was the only place in the United States where casinos were legal; now more than half the states have them. Some states, however, particularly those along the Mississippi River, restrict casino gambling to riverboats (often permanently docked). Following the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, states were required to permit on reservations any type of gambling that was permitted off-reservation. Since that time, tribes throughout the country have opened legal gambling establishments, often greatly enhancing their economy and that of the area where they live, but reservation gambling still produces only a small percentage of all gambling revenues in the country. In the late 1990s, concerns over compulsive gambling (said to affect up to 3% of adult Americans) and the social effects of the mushrooming gambling economy—which had grown by 1,600% since the mid-1970s, with revenues of some $50 billion—brought increased government attention, but gambling revenues have continued to grow in importance to many state budgets.

In recent years, betting on sports such as baseball, basketball, boxing, and football, although illegal in most states, has increased tremendously. Several countries in the Caribbean have established offshore sports betting and on-line casinos, patronized principally by Americans, despite the fact that Internet sports betting is illegal under the federal Wire Wager Act (1994) and all Internet gambling is illegal under many state laws. The World Trade Organization has ruled (2004) that the United States cannot apply its laws to foreign Internet gambling operations, but the United States has not complied with the ruling. Organized sport, although haunted by the memory of the Black Sox scandal of the 1919 World Series and college basketball scandals (1951, 1961), has done little to discourage betting, and instances of professional gamblers attempting to fix the outcome of sporting events still occur. It is also common for network television and newspapers not only to publicize odds but also to employ oddsmaking experts. For sporting events, gambling brokers (popularly, bookies) usually establish two sets of odds, one for each side of the bet, so that they profit no matter what the outcome of the contest.

Bibliography

See E. Bergler, The Psychology of Gambling (1985); F. and S. Barthelme, Double Down (1999); A. Martinez, 24/7 (1999).

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gambling

Betting or staking of something of value on the outcome of a game or event. Commonly associated with gambling are horse racing, boxing, numerous playing-card and dice games, cockfighting, jai alai, recreational billiards and darts, bingo, and lottery. In most gambling games it is customary to express the idea of probability in terms of “odds against winning.” In the U.S. casino gambling, once highly restricted, is now legal in many states, and lotteries are employed by many states to raise revenues. The Internet has also become a venue for placing bets. See also bookmaking; casino.

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Gambling

Atlantic City

New Jersey city has become the Las Vegas of the East. [Am. Hist.: Misc.]

Balibari, Chevalier

de professional gambler and adventurer. [Br. Lit.: Barry Lyndon]

Beaujeu, Monsieur

de known for his betting. [Br. Lit.: Fortunes of Nigel]

Bet-a-million Gates

wealthy American industrialist John Warne Gates (1855–1911). [Am. Culture: Misc.]

Brady, “Diamond Jim”

(1856–1917) diamond-attired rail magnate and financier who loved to gamble. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 192]

Camptown Races Foster’s

ode to betting. [Pop. Music: Van Doren, 192]

Cincinnati Kid,

the “one of the shrewdist gamblers east of the Mississippi.” [Cinema: Halliwell, 462]

Clonbrony, Lord

absentee landlord is compulsive gambler. [Br. Lit.: The Absentee]

Consus

ancient Roman god of horse-racing and counsel. [Rom. Myth.: Zimmerman, 68]

Detroit, Nathan

his obsession with crap games so persistent that it even keeps him from getting married. [Musical Comedy: Damon Runyon Guys and Dolls in On Stage, 322]

devil’s bones

epithet for dice. [Folklore: Jobes, 436]

Google, Barney

hopelessly in love with the ponies. [Comics: Horn, 99–100]

Ivanovich, Alexei

irrevocably drawn to betting tables. [Russ. Lit.: The Gambler]

Las Vegas

city in Nevada notorious for its gambling casinos since 1945. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 382]

Lucky, Mr.

alias Joe Adams, gambler who owns the Fortuna, fancy supper club and gambling yacht. [TV: Terrace, II, 117]

Maverick

family name of two brothers, Bret and Bait; self-centered and untrustworthy gentlemen gamblers. [TV: Terrace, II, 80]

Minnie

plays poker to save Jack Johnson’s life. [Ital. Opera: Puccini, Girl of the Golden West, Westerman, 361]

Monte Carlo

town in Monaco principality, in southeast France; a famous gambling resort. [Fr. Hist.: NCE, 1819]

Mutt

and Jeff hapless punters always looking for a quick buck. [Comics: Horn, 508–509]

Pit,

the Board of Trade’s cellar, where all bidding occurs. [Am. Lit.: The Pit. Magill I, 756–758]

Queen of Spades, The

Aleksandr Pushkin’s short story about the downfall of the gambler Germann. [Russ. Lit.: Benét, 833]

Smiley, Jim

bets his frog can outjump any other; loses by sabotage. [Am. Lit.: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County]