Autonomy of pleasure:  The widening right to gamble

• American attitudes toward gambling underwent a seismic shift in the 1980s, which was fully felt in the law.  The Midwest was very much in the mainstream of this change.   During the mid-19^th century every Midwestern state incorporated a provision against lotteries into its constitution, due partly to a cultural animus against gambling in its Yankee residents and partly to scandals that had engulfed lotteries in other states.  Gambling had been common in the Midwest; the constitutional restrictions caused it to become covert but not to disappear.

• Horse racing became a popular distraction during the Depression, and as a result several Midwestern states allowed parimutuel gambling in the 1930s.  But the dam did not burst until the 1980s; when it did, the burst was thorough.  Three factors were primarily responsible:  (1) state governments experienced severe revenue shortages in the late 1980s and viewed legalized gambling as a politically pain-free way to generate income; (2) Congress passed a landmark law authorizing Indian tribes in the Midwest and elsewhere to set up gaming operations, which in many cases were highly successful; and (3) perhaps most important, cultural disapproval of gambling shrank dramatically in an age that celebrated individual self-fulfillment.