To grasp the concept of gambling, and the perks and the risks that come with it, one needs to go back and understand its origin and evolution. Why and when people started gambling? What were the original reasons behind betting?
This dicey pastime – both in a literal and metaphorical sense – has almost always been an integral part of humankind. Below is a brief crash course on how people started gambling, what changed over time and what brought us to today’s golden era of gambling.
An Exciting History into 5 Ways People Started Gambling
Tale as Old as Time
Believe it or not, gambling dates back to the Paleolithic age, the prehistoric period. The earliest six-sided dice are believed to date to about 3000 BC, and their predecessors, astragali upon which dice are based on, date back thousands of years earlier. Astragali, the ubiquitous gaming pieces that are in fact talus bones of hoover animals, were discovered from the Late Bronze Age.
The tale of gambling is indeed as old as time. There are many theories about where gambling precisely originates from, and the world has not come yet into agreement on this contentious topic. Depending on what one considers gambling to be, the answers can vary. It could be Egypt, where the oldest dice were found. Or Turkey, where the gambling pieces astragali were identified. Perhaps the birth of gambling coincides with the first betting on fighting animals in ancient China, Rome and Greece.
Or the first card game in the 9th century AD in China? Dominoes and lotto games a century later? For some, gambling can only be claimed to have occurred once the gambling house was established, in the 17th century. Tellingly, to pinpoint where it all started is much more complicated that you would think. However, it is non-debatable that gambling has always been inherent to humans in one form or the other, and it will most likely always be.
The Very First Gambling House
The City of Canals is famous for many reasons, and of them is the first casino, or what it was called then, a gambling house. The Ridotto was opened in Venice in 1638 as a result of widespread illegal gambling establishments across the continent. It was in fact the Great Council of Venice that opened the first official gambling house, under the full original name ‘’The Ridotto di San Moise’’, later renamed to Casino di Venezia (Casino of Venice). Soon after, other casinos followed.
By the year of 1744, there were more than 120 gambling dens in the city. The gambling craze which took over this city rapidly spread to the rest of Europe, building a regulated gambling environment. The good news is that the very first casino, the famous Ridotto, is operating even today! So, if you’re looking to experience the history of gambling first-hand, head to the beautiful Venice and find the oldest casino in the world in the very heart of the city, Venice’s Grand Canal.
The Origin of the Most Popular Casino Games
Following the expansion of casinos, that is, gambling houses where rich people could play cards, bet on the games, drink, and eat, the need for new and more sophisticated games arose. In the late 17th century, the French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the roulette wheel, which soon after became the basis for the invention of the roulette game. It took another century or two for gambling machines to make an appearance.
In the 1880s, Bavarian-born American inventor Charles Fay brought a reel-based machine to the world of gambling, which has undergone many forms since then to become what is known now as slot machine.
Charles Fey had been making coin-operated machines in San Francisco for nearly ten years prior to creating his Liberty Bell in 1898. Although other payout machines preceded it, the Liberty Bell was the first automatic-payout, three-reel machine. It established the standard for more than a million slot machines made by other manufacturers during the twentieth century.
During the Prohibition Era in the United States, slot machines became extremely popular. With Nevada being the first to legalize gambling, Las Vegas was soon turned into Sin City.
The world of Lotto
One of the most popular forms of gambling today is the lottery, and the Powerball lottery is a prime example. With its massive jackpots and exciting draws, it has captured the attention of millions worldwide.
Nowadays, buying Powerball tickets is easier than ever before with the advent of online platforms. This convenience allows individuals to participate in the excitement and thrill of the lottery from the comfort of their own homes. So, if you’re feeling lucky and want to try your hand at winning big, you can easily buy Powerball tickets online and join the ranks of hopeful gamblers in pursuit of their dreams.
Online Gambling
After turbulent times over centuries, many attempts to ban gambling and close casinos across the world, gambling survives and thrives to this day via online pokies and all other forms of online gaming. By the turn of the millennium, it underwent an unprecedented transformation.
The giant in the online gambling industry even in the year of 2022, Microgaming was actually the first company to develop fully functional gambling software which operated before the arrival of online casinos. The Free Trade and Processing Act was passed in 1994 which regulated the online world of gambling and therefore protected by players, by allowing licenses to be granted to the organizations and companies applying to open online casinos.
Further regulations took place in years to follow, including the foundation of Kahnawake Gaming Commission which is responsible for issuing gaming licenses to online casinos and poker rooms across the world, and regulating online gaming activities.
Besides coming across a minor obstacle in 1999 with the introduction of the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which aimed to criminalize any company’s attempt to offer gambling products to a U.S. citizen, but did not pass, online gambling continued to expand and improve throughout the year. In the same year when the Prohibition Act failed, multiplayer online gambling was introduced. This has led to hugely popular games like Aviator which was released in 2019. A few years after multiplayer games were introduced, the first live dealer casinos appeared, offering a real-time experience for the clients.
Past, Present and Future
Thanks to the rapid evolution of technology and consequent digitalization, gambling is slowly, but surely, moving along with it. Virtual reality casinos cast a completely new light on online gambling, making in-land traditional casinos almost redundant. One the other hand, many gambling businesses are turning to cryptocurrencies overnight – the values which until yesterday seemed to be a matter of joke, are now taking over the world.
Blockchain technology is perhaps the best thing that happened to the gambling businesses and clients, since it offers a unique, safe and anonymous transaction system, with no third parties in between, no need for giving away personal data or banking information, no fees and no withholds. Both ends benefit from using cryptocurrencies, and besides their volatile nature, crypto values such as Bitcoin and Ethereum which are popular ones in the year of 2022, have a clear advantage over flat-based, standard currencies.
Moreover, the Blockchain technology is said to be the future of gambling for all the obvious reasons – the transparency, anonymity and instancy that it offers is indisputably what the gambling ecosystem needs.
Now when you have a guided tour through the history of gambling, you are most definitely ready for new victories and adventures. Either under the neon lights of the casinos, or before the screen from the comforts of your home, the world of gambling awaits you.
