ied types of gambling in specified settings. For instance, betting at racetracks is legal in many states, while off-track betting such as has developed in New York State remains illegal in many other states. Since the 1940s, casino gambling was associated almost exclusively with Las Vegas until the development of Atlantic City, New Jersey instituted casino gambling in the late 1970s. Other forms of gambling have been adopted in recent years in many states as a way of raising state revenues for different programs, and state lotteries are becoming more the rule than the exception as a consequence.
Legislators often view gambling as a way of acquiring funds from a public that might resist increased taxation but that sees gambling as a reasonable alternative which offers at least the illusion of a possible return, and the public has been more ready to shell out large sums on lottery tickets than it has to pay additional taxes directly. Of course, this is a form of regressive taxation, since not everyone shares the burden equally and since the poor, who may also tend to be drawn to taking a chance on such games, spend a larger percentage of their income on the lottery than would someone making more money in the first place. The present push for casino gambling in New York has come about partially because state officials see large sums of money disappearing into the casinos of nearby Atlantic City and now into Connecticut. Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg of Long Beach noted that Atlantic City was receiving $240 million per year in tax revenue while Connecticut was getting another $40 million from an Indian reservation casino. Weisenberg states: "All of our money is going out of town. Casino gambling does produce revenue and employment. I don't think anybody in this day and age could be against that" (Douglas, 1992, p. 57). Weisenberg and other legislators introduced bills to amend the state constitution to allow for casino gamb...