Gambling always was and will be an
important part of history and prevailing form of
entertainment for rich and poor all alike. Gambling is
common term for various games. Different forms of
gambling have their own very distinct history but
eventually find their way into each other.
Occasionally, gambling
played a major role in history. For instance, in 1020
A.D. King Olaf of Norway and King Olaf of Sweden met
to decide on the ownership of an isolated district of
Hising. As they could not resolve the dispute by other
means they have chosen to roll two dice. At first
rolls both Kings rolled double six, at the second roll
however the Swedish king rolled two dice of six and
the Norway king rolled six on one die while another
one cracked and showed seven!
In 1700s lotteries were established to bail out newly
established British colonies. Later on, Americans used
state-wide lotteries to sponsor the founding of
national educational infrastructure.
History of playing cards
The origin of playing cards is not exactly known.
While earliest verifiable references to playing cards
in Europe can be traced back to 13th century, no one
is certain where exactly do they originate and how did
they manage to make their way into our world. Earliest
found playing card is dated 11th century and comes
from Chinese Turkestan. Many scholars suggest that it
must have been the Chinese who invented the original
playing cards as they were the ones who also invented
the paper. We know that the four decked cards evolved
in Islamic world even before the 13th century and were
brought to the civilized world by Europeans. It is the
French who first introduced the design of the cards
we're familiar with today together with spades, clubs,
diamonds and hearts. The design of the cards was
efficient enough to enable manufacturing en masse. It
took the cards nearly four centuries to finally become
popular as England reluctantly picked up the card
designs from the French and started producing them
itself. Later on, Americans started producing their
own cards adding a lot to the decks and making them as
we know them today: double headed court cards,
varnished backs, indexes, round corners and the
infamous Joker.
Soon after the Americans caught up artists found
themselves a new and interesting game field and thus
more card brands were born giving rise to an entire
market of playing cards.
Other countries used absolutely different playing
cards. For example, India had circular game tokens.
Japanese and Chinese also have their own versions of
playing cards and their gaming concepts are based on
their distinct culture and differ greatly from what we
are used to.
History of Blackjack
The history of the game of Blackjack began around the
beginning of the 18th century in France, where it
appeared in the form of a game called "vingt et un" or
"twenty one". The name "Blackjack" comes from an early
version of the game in which the player received a
payoff of 10 to 1 if he had a black jack of spades and
a (black) ace of spades.
Blackjack made its way from France to the United
States in the 19th century, where it was mainly found
out in the American West. In 1931, gambling became
legal in Las Vegas, and Blackjack became one of the
staples of the new
casino scene.
In the 1950's and 1960's, books were published that
used mathematical analysis to teach players how to
improve their odds of beating the dealer. One of these
books, Dr. Edward Thorp's "Beat the Dealer" became a
bestseller, and Blackjack became the most popular
casino game in the United States.
In 1970's, Ken Uston and his merry band of creative
gamblers used hidden computers to win hundreds of
thousands of dollars. Their ingenuity attracted the
attention of the FBI, which examined the computers and
decided that they were not cheating devices, and
therefore were fair and legal. Players rushed to apply
the lessons of Uston's method, but many casinos
decided to adopt a multi-deck system of play, which
complicated methods to improve the player's chances.
Uston himself was banned from several Las Vegas
casinos and was eventually found dead in a Paris
apartment in 1987. But the game lives on, and prospers
in almost every self-respecting casino, traditional or
online.
History of dice
The dice as we know them today find their origin in
ancient games of bone rolling. Despite of what some
say, dice have traceable history that goes back into
the very roots of ancient humanity. They are arguably
he oldest form of gambling known to humanity. Dice
games were witnessed by Marco Polo.
Ghengas Khan, ancient Egyptian rulers, ancient
Greeks all were known to resort to dice rolling as
means of divination and entertainment. Originally a
form of divination, bone rolling slowly became a game
of fortune telling and gambling. American Indians,
Aztec and Maya, the Africans and the Eskimo all have
their own dice games.
The original dice were bones and teeth of animals,
stones and sticks of wood that primitive culture of
witches and shamans could use as "magical" means of
divination and foretelling. The dice in the shape we
know today apparently come from Koreans used in a
Buddhist game called "Promotion".
Along with the evolution of dice also came the art of
cheating in die games. Romans were especially
notorious at cheating; Augustus, Nero and Caligula all
happened to be prolific dice cheaters.
By tenth century dicing was extremely popular almost
everywhere. Dicing was in fact so popular that the
Crusader army leaders had to prohibit dice gambling
among the lower ranks of troops entirely so as to
prevent the soldiers from gambling out their
possessions entirely.
History of slot machines
In the beginning of the twentieth century several
innovations burst onto the scene that would change the
face of cultural and leisure activities. Two
originated in the American south - the blues and jazz
- and one on the West coast - the slot machine. Like
the first two, which quickly were adopted throughout
the world and became staples of world culture, slot
machines also began to appear very quickly all over
the world.
The first slot machine was invented by Charles Fey in
San Francisco around the turn of the century. On it
were pictures of the different suits used on playing
cards - hearts, spades and diamonds. Around 1910 the
machine went into mass production, and the pictures on
its revolving surfaces changed from being playing card
suits to the now familiar fruits. These old fashioned
slot machines were made out of cast iron and wood.
During the sixties, the slot machine became
electronic, and in the 1970's the first video slot
machines were introduced. Video slots did not have the
mechanical insides of the earlier machines, rather
they had screens on which the wheels would turn.
Today, the most popular slot machines are virtual. The
internet contains a wide variety of exciting and
unusual slot machines whose function accurately
simulates that of the familiar slot machines found in
every casino around the world. Though lacking in
physical form, today's online slot machines offer the
player the same odds and excitement found in a casino,
only these slots can be played anytime and on any
computer.
