High Stakes: The Rising Cost of America’s Gambling Addiction

America is fast becoming hooked on legalized gambling. It's become a ＄94 billion industry, now entrenched in all but two states. Revenues have shot up 70 percent in the last decade alone. Politicians and industry officials assert that gambling is an effective way to raise revenues and create jobs. But a hidden story needs to be told. Studies are showing that fast-rising numbers of addicted gamblers are causing higher indebtedness and bankruptcy rates, as well as increased divorces, suicides and gambling-related crime.

As elected officials across the country are urging voters to expand gambling's reach, millions of Americans are being asked to decide: Are the benefits worth the costs? Through dogged investigative reporting combined with gripping stories of gambling addiction, award-winning journalist Sam Skolnik, a poker player himself, attempts to find the answer.

High Stakes- the first comprehensive exploration of the consequences of the gambling boom - surveys everything from the impact of Internet gambling and the politics surrounding gambling legalization, to the casino industry's targeting of Asian-Americans and the reality of Las Vegas, a community he argues is fundamentally distorted by gambling.