Guide To History Of Gambling: Interesting Things You Should Know

Gambling has been a part of human lives for quite a long time. The history of gambling is an integral part of human history, dating back thousands of years. Almost every ancient culture practiced gambling in one form or another. As long as a group of people gets together, it is almost certain that gambling will occur. Chinese gambled while they were building the Great Wall. Egyptians enjoyed their ivory dice in the shadows of the newly-built pyramids. Greek hoplites passed the time on long military campaigns with bones, while Roman legionaries played Heads and Ships all over the Mediterranean. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find a culture that didn’t gamble in their spare time. Today, gambling is a massive industry, worth billions of dollars and growing. While the games and the technology are vastly different, the motivation and the thrill of the game are still the same.

History Of Gambling

The earliest record of gambling comes from the Paleolithic period, even before written history started. It developed into astragalomancy, a religious procedure designed to discover divine intentions and the future by casting bones or stones. The intention was to help people with making important decisions, but the same bones were also used for gambling. Later, astragali, a form of dice, was created in China, from which the first gambling dice developed in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Chinese also used a form of a lottery to divide the workload in their settlements as early as 200 BC

Ancient Greeks And Roman

Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles claims that dice were invented during the siege of Troy by a Greek soldier. While it is easy to see how sitting in front of a fortified city for ten years would spur the mind to create something like that, the claim is probably a false one. What is true is the fact that Greeks played dice around 500 BC, when they were first mentioned in written histories. Rough Guide to History of Gambling offers some interesting details of those games. They probably enjoyed them earlier, it just didn’t occur to anyone to write about them. Ancient Romans played a game called Heads and Ships, from which modern head and tails developed. Tossing a coin is probably among the simplest gambling games ever invented. There are only two choices and it was hard to cheat, so it was very popular.

First Playing Cards

It is difficult to imagine a history of gambling without playing cards. The Chinese had the same idea, so they came up with the first deck in the 9th century AD, during the Tang dynasty. Unfortunately, we don’t know the rules of the game or games they used to play, as they were lost in the mists of history. Cards spread from China to Mesopotamia and later Egypt. They probably had very little, if any, resemblance to the 52-card decks we use today. Modern playing cards originated in Europe in the 14th century. Ironically, the first mentions of playing cards were bans issued on their use in 1367 in Berne and 1377 in Florence. Those documents indicate that even then there were people who had issues with gambling.

European Roots Of Gambling

The development of printing allowed artisans to create the first printed playing cards in the early 1400s. That led to a sharp drop in price and cards became more widely used, although they were still mostly played by the upper classes, namely nobility, and rich merchants. Around that time, we see the first mention of Baccarat, a game invented in Italy, but popularized in France. In time, various card designs crystallized into several distinct styles, of which French, Italian, and German are the most popular. Contemporary cards are mostly French, with hearts, spades (or pikes), diamonds (or tiles), and clubs (or clovers). German-style cards feature hearts, acorns, leaves, and bells, while Italian ones have cups, coins, swords, and clubs.

America Takes A Seat At The Table

The first American contribution to the history of gambling was one-hand bandit, the predecessor of modern slot machines. Designed in the 19th century, it soon became a staple in bars all across the United States. It was simple to use and awards at first weren’t monetary. Instead, a patron could win free drinks of meals from the establishment that housed the machine. Those first contraptions were called Liberty Bells machines since one of the symbols they displayed were bells. Later models were more sophisticated and were able to handle direct payments to players. So next time you take a spin at an online slot, give thanks to Mr. Charles Fey in San Francisco, who invented the original concept.

The History Of Online Gambling

The creation of the Internet and its widespread use opened up a whole new model for the gambling industry. Online casinos began sprouting like mushrooms in the early 2000s, giving birth to the online gambling industry. Today, it is a massive sector, worth $66 billion and growing. It is projected to reach a value of 493 billion by 2023. As such, it threatens to overcome traditional gambling institutions, although nothing can quite compete with Las Vegas or Macau casinos. With an increase in the use of mobile devices, mobile gambling represents the new frontier in the development of the industry and one that is proving highly popular.