A Chronology of (Legal) Gaming in the U.S

Casino gaming is the fastest growing segment of the hospitality industry (Find/ SVP Consulting, 1996, p. 1). Thus, more and more hospitality education programs are incorporating casino gaming into their curricula, and, inevitably, the history of casino gaming is one of the topics discussed. More specifically, the discussion of gaming focuses on legal rather than illegal gambling activities and tends to center around casinos that incorporate support activities such as hotel rooms, food and beverage, etc. There tends to be little discussion of gambling operations that have no hospitality support facilities such as lotteries, video poker, or video lottery terminals (VLTs). However, none of the texts used, including one which I coauthored, has undertaken a comprehensive examination of the history of casino gaming in the U.S. All have had some gaps or are missing significant pieces of gaming's chronology. This paper addresses the problem by putting forth a graphical time line of casino gaming development in the U.S. The material developed for this paper begins with the year 1492, when Columbus' sailors undoubtedly gambled on the shores of the Americas. Opposition to gambling first appeared in 1638, when the Puritan's enacted the first law in what would become the U.S. prohibiting gambling. The chronology proceeds through the subsequent three centuries tracing where gambling developed, how it was operationalized, and where/when it was prohibited. The time line ends at 1995, with the opening of new casinos in Las Vegas and the closing of Harrah's casino in New Orleans.