Casinos exist because they make money, lots of it, off of chumps and addicts. They are not in existence to lose money and make everyone a winner. Casinos are designed, lighted and created for the sole purpose of extracting as much of your money as possible before you break free and get away.
One bit of info in the article was new and kind of a shocker.
At the root of that growth is Indian gaming, which has exploded in California from a limited-game $1.4 billion business in 2000 to a $7.7 billion behemoth today that draws more than 10 million gamblers a year - and has eclipsed Las Vegas' $6.5 billion annual take to become the premier gambling region of America.California now does more gambling business than Las Vegas (at least above the board legal gambling) and that's both eye-opening and really depressing.
I understand why gambling is addictive, its the lure of easy money, its the natural human tendency to pave over bad experiences and remember the good ones (i.e. you forget losing money and only remember winning even if you lost ten times what you won), its flashing lights and bells and whistles and mayhem. The instant you set foot in a casino, you are on their turf and they control literally everything in order to coerce you to lose your money faster.
I gamble when I go to casinos, not too much but some. And I almost invariably lose whatever money I take. The trick is to not take very much money or just avoid the casinos altogether.