This TIME Magazine article from 1953 offers a glimpse at the period following World War II when states recriminalized slot machines. “Though the state legally controlled them, the slots acted, increasingly, like a virus in the body politic, dividing Idaho citizens against each other, changing the shape of towns, altering social life, wounding business and giving whole communities a surrealistic civic philosophy.” By legalizing slot machines, the government was still unable to control the negative impacts: restaurants, doctors, dentists and other local businesses began to go broke as a result of slot clubs siphoning patrons and their money away and “as a result, in rapid and indignant succession, Idaho’s bigger cities began banning slot machines.”
“Beaten By The Odds: Gambling With Your Future” | AARP Bulletin
May 1, 2026
By John Rosengren “With new forms of gambling booming in America, some retirees are going bust.” BUL_MAY-JUN_2026