Johnston, David. Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc.
to Win control of the Casino Business. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 312 pages.
As the Atlantic City bureau chief for the Philadelphia Inquirer,
David Johnston investigated the casino industry for nearly four years.
Casinos were legalized in Atlantic City in 1978, under regulations designed
to exclude organized crime. Johnston makes the case that although there
were instances of money-laundering by the drug cartels that the regulators
failed to pursue, the larger threat to the public welfare came from
junk-bond speculators like Donald Trump, Merv Griffin, and Stephen Wynn.
From Holiday Inn and Ramada Inn, to Mississippi riverboats and Indian
reservations, and including all those state lotteries that have poor people
queuing up for sucker bets, gambling as a social phenomenon is more
worrisome now than when the mob controlled Las Vegas.
Casino regulators in New Jersey came down hard on minor employees to
create the appearance of being tough, while giving the benefit of the doubt
to big investors with shaky financing. These investors are the consistent
winners in commercial gambling -- casino owners set the odds, and they
control a subtle and sophisticated psychological environment. Politicians
brag about the jobs created by casinos, even though the industry is not
labor-intensive. And it's a poor foundation on which to build a local
economy, since gambling transfers wealth but can never create it.
ISBN 0-385-41920-1
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