David G. Schwartz In The News
The Press of Atlantic City
From lotteries to casinos, horse tracks to mobile sports betting, tribal bingo halls to prediction markets, most of America is awash in gambling as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. But gambling was popular in America before there even WAS an America. Native Americans played games with sticks and dice, including a hide-the-stone-in-a-moccasin game that could be the precursor of the modern shell game. British settlers brought their country's love of gambling to the new world, betting on horse races, playing cards and dice games in taverns, and using lotteries to help finance public works projects, including the very establishment of some of the American colonies long before they declared independence in 1776.
