"We Intend to Run It": Racial Politics, Illegal Gambling, and the Rise of Government Lotteries in the United States, 1960-1985

Vaz, Matthew

doi:10.1093/jahist/jau328

Cited by 4 publications

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“…This stereotype persisted despite the fact that, following the end of Prohibition in 1933, Italian and Jewish mobsters shifted their attention from bootlegging to gambling and, by the 1940s, had taken financial control over many black numbers games. 22 Organized crime's management of urban lotteries reflected its continued involvement in various forms of illegal betting even after the Senate investigations of the 1950s and the legislative crackdowns of the 1960s.…”

Section: The Case For Legalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Put the Gangsters Out of Business”: Gambling Legalization and the War on Organized Crime

Cohen

2019

J. Policy Hist.

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Abstract:From the 1950s through the 1970s, American policymakers engaged in an extensive campaign against illegal gambling in an effort to turn the tide in the government’s crusade against organized crime. At the grassroots, however, voters endorsed a different form of state expansion to beat back the mob menace. Between 1963 and 1977, fourteen northeastern and Rust Belt states enacted the first government-run lotteries in the twentieth-century United States on the belief that legalized gambling would undercut the mob’s gambling profits. While gambling opponents pointed to Las Vegas as proof that organized crime would flourish following legalization, supporters argued that illegal gambling was already pervasive, so the state may as well profit from this irrepressible activity. The history of gambling legalization challenges narratives on the popularity of law-and-order politics and offers a new perspective on crime policy in the post–World War II period.

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Section: The Case For Legalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Put the Gangsters Out of Business”: Gambling Legalization and the War on Organized Crime

Cohen

2019

J. Policy Hist.

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Differences Between Illegal and Legal Gamblers in Israel: Gambling Behavior, Motivation, and Substance Use

Bonny-Noach

2022

J Gambl Stud

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Little is known about people who gamble in illegal settings, and the extent of differences in gambling behavior between legal and illegal gamblers is unclear. The present study examined the characteristics of illegal gamblers and whether they engage in more frequent and severe gambling behaviors, and demonstrate greater motivation for gambling and substance use than legal gamblers. A cross-sectional online survey recruited 1251 people who gambled in the preceding year, of whom 13% (N = 161) participated in illegal gambling. Significant differences were found in gambling behaviors between illegal and legal gamblers in all outcomes examined. People who participated in illegal gambling reported more frequent participation in almost all types of legal gambling, more types of "multi-bets," more severe and high-risk gambling behaviors, higher motivations to gamble, and higher frequencies of substance use than those who engaged in legal gambling. Logistic regressions revealed that the stronger associations with illegal gambling were among problem gamblers (OR = 17.80; CI 9.21-34.4; p < 0.000), among the age group of 29-41 years (OR = 6.16; CI 3.15-12.3; p < 0.000), among moderate-risk gamblers (OR = 5.54;; p < 0.000) and among secular individuals (OR = 4.11; CI 1.73-9.77; p ≤ 0.001). A comprehensive gambling policy is needed in Israel to address illegal gambling. The policy should attend to harm reduction, treatment, prevention, and enforcement. Additionally, more studies are needed to examine gambling behavior and other risk behaviors of illegal gamblers.

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How the Rockefeller Laws Hit the Streets: Drug Policing and the Politics of State Competence in New York City, 1973–1989

Williams¹

2021

Mod. Am. Hist.

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Recent studies have shown that the punitive drug laws enacted in the mid-1970s led to a sharp increase in incarceration only in the mid-1980s, when city police departments started policing street-level drug markets much more intensively. The case study of New York City in the wake of the Rockefeller Drug Laws of 1973 presents an explanation. Only when new policing ideas, popular dissatisfaction with street crime, and the revival of the city's fiscal capacity coalesced as part of a larger project to rebuild urban governance in the aftermath of the fiscal crisis of the 1970s did New York turn toward street-level drug enforcement. An examination of the political history of street-level drug enforcement offers a better understanding of the history of New York's war on drugs, as well as a new chronology of the political dynamics of state rebuilding in the 1980s.

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"We Intend to Run It": Racial Politics, Illegal Gambling, and the Rise of Government Lotteries in the United States, 1960-1985

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

“Put the Gangsters Out of Business”: Gambling Legalization and the War on Organized Crime

“Put the Gangsters Out of Business”: Gambling Legalization and the War on Organized Crime

Differences Between Illegal and Legal Gamblers in Israel: Gambling Behavior, Motivation, and Substance Use

How the Rockefeller Laws Hit the Streets: Drug Policing and the Politics of State Competence in New York City, 1973–1989

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