A Public Health Perspective on Gambling

I published “Gambling with America’s Health? The public health costs of legal gambling” on the Pacific Standard and the 2x2 project.

(Image: Jon Kalish)

Here’s the nut of it,

A debate over the social and health costs of legal gambling has largely been sidelined even as availability has expanded dramatically in the last 25 years. This is not because of a lack of merit, say experts and activists, but because of the political power of the gambling industry. They allege that the industry has employed tactics in the same spirit as those of tobacco companies, which for many years misled consumers about the addictive properties of cigarettes and advertised to young people and other vulnerable consumers.

but read the whole thing.