The love-hate relationship of America with gambling continued throughout the early part of the 20th century. In New Jersey, for example, “gambling resorts” cropped up along the Hudson River across from their beloved clientele in New York City. Most of these operations were run by illegal crime syndicates, who reaped millions of dollars in profits to finance other activities, such as bootlegging, hijacking, prostitution, gun running and drug dealing. Yet the local authourities had little interest in seeing the resorts closed. In 1908, the sheriff of Atlantic County confidently declared that gaming was “a boon to the tourist trade.”
Europe and the rest of the world looked on, having already dealt, by and large, with this angst over legality. Britain’s Parliament, for example, had ended state lotteries by 1826 and then drove gaming out of public houses with strict sanctions against professional gambling in 1845, largely to eliminate cheating. Social clubs were allowed to continue with their games, but betting houses were closed in 1853, and bookmakers were corralled at racecourses where they could be scrutinised. It is quite likely that King Edward VII’s own love of thoroughbreds prevented the tracks from being closed altogether.
The Chinese government decided to tolerate the casinos established by Portugal in Macau in the 1850s as well as the racetrack created in Hong Kong’s Happy Valley, but they decried the playing of Mahjong for money within their own boundaries as “culturally degrading.” Australia waffled on the legalisation of bookmaking and lotteries in the 19th century, before eventually giving them an official okay under a very watchful eye.
On the Continent, most countries, like Italy, Germany and France, used laws to keep cheaters at bay and organised gambling under control, without going after the games themselves or their players. Monte Carlo, by contrast, never had a crisis of conscience and cemented itself as the capital of European gaming, which it remains to this day.
So it was that Nevada, a “Wild West” state if ever there was one, declared gambling illegal in 1910, looking to clear out unsavoury elements. Then 21 years later, the state reversed its decision, looking to the jobs and revenues that casinos could bring as a way out of the Great Depression. Little could the Nevadans of that time have known what was in store for their progeny.
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