In casinos from coast to coast, in slot parlors from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Shore, at racetracks and in lotteries across the country, Americans will legally gamble away—that is, lose—nearly $90 billion this year.

How times change. A hundred years ago, gambling was a national vice almost universally outlawed. A mere 30 years ago, Americans could only gamble legally in Nevada and Atlantic City. Yet, since the early 1990s, state-sanctioned gambling has exploded. Rural Connecticut and a once-backwater patch of Mississippi are gambling oases, Iowa has a small fleet of riverboat casinos, and a gambling parlor has been proposed for Buffalo, N.Y. There are casinos in 32 states, and every state except Hawaii and Utah offers some form of legal betting. The public seems eager to play: The take for commercial casinos alone has more than doubled since 1995, from $16 billion to nearly $33 billion last year.

Is this really a good idea?

The gambling industry, of course, says “yes,” arguing that casinos, especially those that become destinations for gamblers, produce both private jobs—for dealers, tellers, waiters and the like—and public cash from taxes on revenues, agreements with American Indian tribes and the spillover from tourists. “Depending on what type of gaming it is,” says Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., president and CEO of the American Gaming Association (AGA), “in most cases there’s been capital investment and economic development. There have been jobs produced and tax revenues created.”