Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

Gambling. Edited by David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit, Mich.: Greenhaven Press Thomson Gale, 2007. 190 p. $34.95. ISBN 10: 0-7377-3352-7; ISBN 13: 978-0-7377-3352-5

Each year, opposition to gambling has waned as its contribution to taxes has increased. More than half of the adults in the U.S. purchased a lottery ticket in 2005. Poker tournaments are played to the home television audience while others who are themselves betting use the Internet. The ability to place bets on the Internet has raised questions about underage gambling. The four questions here: "How Does Legalized Gambling Affect Society?", "How Should the U.S. Government Respond to Internet Gambling?", "Is Compulsive Gambling a Problem?" and "How Are Lottery Innovations Affecting Society and the Gaming Industry?" Implications are made that gambling is addictive and one article talks about how casinos are trying to approach players who appear to be compulsive gamblers to see if they have a problem. Some students studying this problem might be interested in researching the degree of problem gambling happening in their own schools.