I have read:
*Sucker's Progress; an informal history of gambling in America from the colonies to Canfield* by Herbert Asbury (I loved this book; a rambling, disorganized but fun and lovable old book about 19th century gambling. From other sources I gather that Asbury mixed some facts with fictions but there are lots of stories and ancecdotes).
*Card Sharps, Dream Books, and Bucket Shops: Gambling in the 19Th-Century America,* by Ann Vincent Fabian. (This book is more academic but quite well done. She does a great job exploring the competing tendencies of business/entrepreneurial spirits vs. moralism/religion. This is her central thesis; that capitalism eventually wears down the moral strictures against gambling to facilitate investment. She explicitly use race, class, and gender as central to her analysis. The racial analysis of 19th century dreambooks is fascinating).
I have not read:
National Gambling Impact Study Commission Final Report, June 1999, Kay C. James, Chairman, National Gambling Impact Study Commission, 800 N. Capitol St., N.W., Ste. 450, Washington, D.C. 20002.(202)523-8217, fax (202)532-4394. (Max mentioned this I believe)
*The Age of Chance* by Gerda Reith (I did skim this and it seems a very interesting book. However, she takes a pretty romantic view of what gambling is--she ascribes spiritual power to gambling that well reasoned seemed to be a bit of a stretch)
*Gambling in America : an encyclopedia of history, issues, and society* by William N. Thompson. This is a new book by current Gambling policy wonk from UNLV--he writes for a lot conservative think tanks; but I will give it a look)
Peace,
Jim
"Dreams are to be deciphered according to rules and a common language. . . . Negroes represent scoundrels, error, ignorance, misfortune, disease, and death."
-James Monroe, *The Dream Investigator and Oneiocritica* [sold to white Midwesterners] , 1884
"(The) Negro denotes happiness, many powerful friends. To dream of a Negro man . . . is a favorable token for the dreamer. . . . To dream of a white man means lawsuits, and that your liberty is in danger."
-"Gypsy Witch", *The Gypsy Witch Dream Book and Policy Players Guide* [sold to urban African Americans], 1903.
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