This book offers a sociological model for evaluating the differential impact of each of the major commercial games (State lotteries, casinos, and parimutual betting) on the individual and on society. In approaching these games from the perspective of the public interest, the analysis shows that each type of game produces characteristic and widely varying loss levels and distributes losses differentially among the general population. The book concludes that the magnitude and demographic distribution of gambling losses are not ordinarily factored into the policymaking process. Overall, gambling operators, governments, the media, and organized crime have created a machine that processes conventional behavior into excessive gambling revenues. From the public interest perspective, commercial gambling should be a recreational activity, albeit with ambiguous cultural status and imperfectly understood social and medical consequences, provided by honest operators at the lowest possible cost to the consumer and society. It should be regulated under workable laws by knowledgeable and adequately paid regulators whose only interest in gambling is the public welfare. A glossary, subject index, and 490-item bibliography.