Gambling Casinos: Carpet and Sawdust Joints Yesterday and Today

Casino gambling is illegal in all states except Nevada, and yet the sum of money earned by its operators is exceeded only by the earnings of state and track in betting on the horses.

Although second to horse betting in earnings, the gross casino gambling handle of about $100 billion in 1973 in the U.S. was almost twice the race betting handle of $46 billion. My survey shows that about 31 million Americans, of whom 13 million were women, visited one or more gambling houses during this year, and that there are more than a million men and women who earn all or part of their living directly or indirectly from gambling casinos.

If we add to the U.S. gross handle another $5 billion which Americans gamble in the legalized casino of Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Netherlands Antilles, Haiti, other Caribbean countries, England, Panama, Monte Carlo, France, Italy, West Germany and other foreign countries, we find that in 1973 they wagered the gigantic sum of $105 billion in casino gambling.

The five banking games in American and Caribbean casinos that get the most action, listed in order of their popularity, are: Craps, Black Jack, Slot Machines, Roulette and Baccarat-Chemin de Fer and Scarney Baccarat. These games handle about 85% of all money wagered in click2pay catering to American gamblers. The remaining 15% is bet at casino side games such as the dice games-Hazard, Klondike, Chuck-a-Luck, under and Over Seven, Beat the Shaker; the wheels of chance-Big Six, Money Wheel, Racehorse Wheel, and Keno.

This over-all U.S. gross handle of $100 billion was estimated as follows: Take the official figures on legalized gambling first. In 1973, the l00-odd Nevada gambling establishments reported to the State Tax Commission a combined gross revenue of $804 million. If we add to this the fact that millions of dollars are stolen each year from the casino by professional cheats and casino employees, I am sure that the men and women who gambled in Nevada in 1973 paid out at least $849 million for their gambling pleasure. However, to simplify our mathematics, let''s just take a round figure of $800 million as our basis for further calculations.

After clocking the five most popular casino games a great many times, I have found that on an average 4¢ out of each dollar wagered is retained by the house. If this seems low because most casino games have a house P.C. greater than 4%, remember that there are several bets in Bank Craps, the game that receives the most action, on which the house percentage is considerably less. This is also true of BaccaratChemin de Fer.

If the $800 million is 4%, then the gross handle for legalized gambling in Nevada in 1973 comes to $20 billion. If this seems high, remember that more than 18 million tourists visited the state, most of whom placed bets ranging from 5¢ to $1,000 and more, gambling in more than 100 casinos which were open for business 24 hours a day.

Also bear in mind that the dollars in any gross-handle figure are counted a good many times before they are won or lost. Let me illus-trate this with a clocking experiment I made at the swank Havana Hilton click2pay shortly before Castro took it over. I sat on a ladder overlooking the dice table, paper and pencil in hand, and kept track of all wagers for five hours. During that period $3 million went back and forth across the table from players to dealers to players. This was the gross betting handle, and yet only $40,000 actually changed hands by the end of the five-hour period.

In order to get an approximate figure as to the yearly gross handle of the illegal casinos in the United States, I interviewed about 200 operators and employees of illegal gambling houses, large and small, in various sections of the country. I found that for every dollar wagered in the l00-odd legal casinos in Nevada, $4 was wagered in the thousands of illegal casinos in the country. With a $20 billion legal gross handle, this 4 to 1 ratio means that the illegal gross handle was $80 billion, on which the illegal operators earned about 4%, or $3.2 billion.

While the legalized casino betting handle has risen in the past ten years, the illegal casino betting handle like the illegal off-track race handle has declined. This is due, primarily, to the strict FBI and police enforcement of federal and state anti-gambling laws. But, chances are, as in the past, every twenty years sees a drastic drop in the illegal gambling handling of all sorts-then a few years later the illegal take again begins its upward climb.

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