Gambling Politics: State Government and the Business of
Betting. By Patrick A. Pierce and Donald E. Miller. Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004. 240p. $35.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.
The traditional wisdom regarding the decision to adopt a lottery was
that state policymakers turned to lotteries in an effort to avoid raising
taxes. Yet at least one seminal study (Frances Stokes Berry and William
Berry, “State Lottery Adoptions as Policy Innovations: An Event
History Analysis,” American Political Science Review 84
[1990]: 395–415) suggests that such adoptions are most
likely when the fiscal health of the state is relatively strong, among
other things. These findings present some interesting and somewhat
perplexing questions for those who study the gambling industry. If fiscal
health of the state does not have a substantial impact on gambling
adoptions, why then are the political battles surrounding those adoptions
so often framed in terms of revenues? The revenues generated by even the
most successful state lotteries and casinos are relatively small when
compared to traditional taxes, such as sales and income tax (with the
noteworthy exception of Nevada casinos, which have historically generated
substantial portions of that state's total revenue). An important
area for policy research is whether casinos are being viewed by states
primarily as revenue generators or in some other terms. In the case of
casinos, much of the discussion in some states has centered on the
economic development possibilities of the casino industry.