Jackpot Nation: Rambling and Gambling Across Our Landscape of Luck - Softcover

Hoffer, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060761458 ISBN 13: 9780060761455

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2008

Synopsis

Is this a great country or what?

You can bet on the turn of the card or a roll of the dice, but also on the NFL, the NCAA, and which Olsen twin marries first. We bet $80 billion a year, the amount growing wildly as more and more people gain access to this huge American wheel of fortune. No longer quarantined in Las Vegas, gambling has become as local and convenient as our neighborhood cineplex. If there's not a casino around the corner, there's one on your laptop computer.

In Jackpot Nation, Richard Hoffer takes us on a headlong tour, alternately horrifying and hilarious, across our landscape of luck. Whether he's trying to win a side of bacon in a Minnesota bar, hustling a paper sack filled with $100,000 in cash across Las Vegas parking lots, poring over expansion plans with a tribal chief in California, or visiting the New York prison cell of a retired bus salesman with a poor understanding of three-game parlays, Hoffer explores with wit and heart our national inclination—a cultural predisposition, even—to take a chance.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Hoffer is an award-winning senior writer for Sports Illustrated and the author of A Savage Business: The Comeback and Comedown of Mike Tyson. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

From School Library Journal:

Adult/High School—According to Hoffer, America is a nation strung out on gambling. The book is loosely modeled on Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (Houghton, 2001), and the author theorizes that the pioneer spirit is so ingrained in the collective American psyche that we can't help being a nation of risk takers succumbing to the "thrill of possibility." Taking readers on a fast and frenzied romp, he explores the adrenaline-pumping highs and inevitable lows of what he considers the American fixation on risk-reward schemes. He covers the gamut from illicit Utahan gambling parlors hidden away in dingy dark corners to the glitz and glamour of Vegas, and from rural West Virginian slot-machine establishments to those betting on their own genetic luck while undergoing DNA testing for proof of Indian blood (so as to capitalize on Indian-casino fortunes). Even the government seems on the take, having created the lottery as a legal form of gambling to subsidize "budgetary shortfalls." The testosterone-laden narrative employs such descriptions as "snot cracking frigid," which may resonate with young males. Gambling- and sports-oriented jargon is freely used, rendering some sentences incomprehensible to the virgin gambler. Less serious and more anecdotal than Schlosser's researched book, Jackpot Nation will appeal to pop-culture enthusiasts, teens with a penchant for gambling, and social-studies students researching addictive behaviors.—Jodi Mitchell, Durham County Library, NC
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0060761458
• ISBN 13: 9780060761455
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 241