History of Gambling

Gambling in the past

There is no solid proof available as to when or where gambling actually originated. The roulette, slots, blackjack history and other gambling games take their roots from immemorial times from Asia. However, even as far back as 2300 BC, the Chinese officially recorded the first ever known gambling practice. It is believed by scholars all over the world that gambling had existed in our society in some form since ancient times.

According to various evidences that have been found by archeologists, even the ancient cavemen had been gambling. They used to gamble with objects made from bones of animals in a form of dice. These objects had been found during various excavations in Pompeii and other places in the world which date back to 40,000 years. These earliest dices had been made in such a way that they would fall in the appropriate manner, much like modern dices.

The Chinese had used tiles to play a gambling game which relied mainly on chance in the 2300s BC and later the Greeks used to play various games to pass their free time using dice. However, gambling had been considered to be illegal in Greece even at that time. Various objects that had been found in Rome, India, Japan, China and even in Egypt show that gambling had in fact been a part of the life of our ancestors.

The Native Americans had believed that the games of chances had been invented by God himself and used dices made from plum stones to play various games. Native Americans also used dices to win possessions and objects from fellow players and they even used to predict the future of the people with the help of dice.

Another interesting form of card gambling is rummy, please check out the history of rummy.

Invention of lottery

When the lottery had been introduced during the Revolutionary War, they had become an instant hit. In 1793 a lottery had been introduced to finance the Columbia District's improvements and following that several other states started their own lotteries.

Gambling venues were mainly the towns on the coasts and the riverboats during the ancient times which sometimes operated gambling houses illegally. Several greatest known con-men and professional cheaters dated back to those times. Cheaters often used to con other players to win their possessions, gold and sometimes even their slaves and anything they could lay their hands on. It was in the 1830s that the earliest casino had been started. In fact it was known as a ten percent house since the house's cut had been ten percent then.

Gambling today

Even today, several casino games that we play (e.g. baccarat, poker) had been derived from some of the earliest gambling games. For example, the game of blackjack had been the ancient game that had once been played by Napoleon.

During the time of prohibition, the gambling houses and drinking pubs moved underground but they operated anyways. During the 1930s, horse race betting had been legalized and one year later Nevada made gambling legal again. It was then that casinos actually picked up in Nevada and then the rest of the states followed suit.