With that as backdrop, our goal was to determine whether the various modes of gambling were permitted in more or fewer states during these two points in time. We undertook to determine which modes of gambling were allowed and operating in 1999, the year we began our first national gambling survey, and which modes were allowed and operating when we started our second national survey in 2011, twelve years later. 1 To determine which modes of gambling are allowed and available across the United States, we also needed to examine and understand the gambling laws of each state individually. We conducted two national representative surveys on gambling, over a decade apart, to explore changes in gambling. Many states are willing to expand gambling opportunities in order to increase the resulting state revenues, while others are resistant to these types of changes to their gambling laws. Some forms of gambling are permitted in a given state while others are not.
The issue of gambling within a state is not, however, without controversy. The legalization and regulation of gambling can provide a state with a means to increase state revenues without increasing state taxes, and also may provide an economic boost to a region. I n the past fifty years, gambling opportunities across the United States have steadily increased.
