Compulsive gambling is gaining recognition as a public health issue and a disorder similar to alcoholism and drug dependency.
In fact, approximately 6% of the adult general population has had some significant, adverse effect from gambling in their lifetimes. About 4% (or nearly 250,000 Massachusetts residents) has had a gambling problem within the past year.
The following data is excerpted from
Estimating the Prevalence of Disordered Gambling Behavior in the United States and Canada: A Meta-Analysis (
Howard J. Shaffer, Ph.D.; Matthew N. Hall; and Joni Vander Bilt, Harvard Medical School, Division on Addictions, 1997).
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We are now in the midst of the third wave of widespread legal gambling in the United States (Rose, 1986;1995) This wave began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression, when Nevada re-legalized casinos and pari-mutual gambling spread across the country. The current era of gambling expansion began in 1964, when New Hampshire initiated the first modern state lottery. Since then, the opportunity to gamble spread across America
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To date, 37 states in addition to Washington D.C. have legalized lotteries and 26 states have Native American or independent casinos (Whyte, 1997). All states with the exception of Utah and Hawaii have legalized some form of gambling
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During the past two decades, gambling disorders have evidenced an increasing rate among adults sampled from the general population
