[.ca] Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture (ISBN 0415179971)

Most authoritative modern text on the subject:
This is the most illuminating, up-to-date, and entertaining history of gambling in the West that has yet been published. I was a student at the University of Salford (UK) when I had to read this as part of a course on the sociology of gambling. Reith's style is scholarly, yet accessible. This text stands as an example of how interesting and diverse the historical/ cultural development of gambling has been, and of how much gambling can tell us about modern society and, as such, stands as a riposte to the yawn-inducing tedium of the 'problem gambling' school of books on this topic, which consists of a bunch of safety-merchants/salesmen who (presumably) aspire to scholary wisdom, yet fail miserably to say anything useful about one of the most fundamental of human traits: the itch for play. In short, Gerda Reith's book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in why anyone would take a chance on anything (and not just gambling).