A Brief History
Casinos feel like they have been around forever. That is most likely because they are not a new invention. In fact casinos have outlived more than five generations of people at this point in time. They have offered everything from small buildings with simple games to the technological marvel that is using gambling apps for real money. With the wide range of gaming options that are out there, it is definitely a sensible question to ask, where did casinos start?
Digging Deeper
Gambling
It would be wrong to talk about casinos without first mentioning gambling. After all, without gambling the casino would not exist. Gambling itself has been around for as long as there have been people. From dice being excavated in Egypt to China inventing playing cards, gambling has always been in the world. In fact, all a casino really is is an organized setting where people can choose to gamble.
First casinos
Once people decided that they enjoyed gambling and wanted to take part in it, it was only a matter of time before casinos popped up. What was a surprise was that it took until the 1600s for the first casinos to appear. Created in Venice the first casino appeared in 1638 and was the first place to give players the opportunity to play games of chance. The first games to appear in these places tended to be Roulette or a variation of Blackjack, called vingt et un. For anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of French they will know that vingt et un is the French for 21.
Once these casinos appeared it did not take long for more casinos to start appearing all around Europe and by the 19th Century, casinos had made their way over to the USA. Of course, the first games were the French games Roulette and vingt et un, which means it is no surprise that Roulette and Blackjack are still to this day two of the most popular games in American casinos.
It was not long after this that newer creations started appearing, by the 1970s video slots had started to make their way into casinos. But, where did the modern casino truly get its first influence from?
Roulette
It is commonly believed that the Roulette wheel was invented by Blaise Pascal. The man who puts his name to a computer programming language was a prolific inventor during the 1600s and the Roulette wheel was actually created by mistake. He was intending to make a perpetual motion machine, but due to it being physically impossible, he failed. Like all great inventors he turned his failure into a success by making it into a Roulette wheel.
The wheel soon became a popular game offering players lots of excitement and plenty of fun; however, things really changed in the 1800s. This was when modern casinos were truly born. It was here that the King of Monaco had a Roulette wheel designed with a zero on it. He then used this wheel in the casinos of Monte Carlo. This was because he was struggling financially and he needed the casinos to bring in some revenue. The Roulette wheel was a huge success and the upscale casino was born. It is still something to this day that Monaco is known for.
Later in the 1800s the Roulette wheel made its way over to the USA where another zero was added to the wheel, increasing the house edge even more. It was here that the modern American casino started to gain in popularity, with the saloons of the Wild West having a big connection to this period, but soon making way for the more upscale casino that is seen in the modern world.
Online gambling
With the advent of the internet as a popular means of entertainment, it was always going to be a matter of time before an online casino appeared. It actually happened a lot sooner than most people think. While the internet is generally regarded to have been launched officially in 1991, online casino gambling really had a chance to start when Barbuda and Antigua decided to regulate online gambling in 1994, it meant that it was just a matter of time before an online casino appeared. The world was still a long way off fast internet in the majority of homes, but it still only took two years for the first online casino to appear. In 1996, InterCasino was opened and this saw the influx of online casinos that we have in the world today. Not long after the opening of InterCasino NetEnt and Microgaming opened their doors and they are still two of the biggest software providers in the industry today.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Have you ever been to a casino?
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Schwartz, David G. Roll The Bones: The History of Gambling (Casino Edition). Winchester Books, 2013.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by stokpic, is licensed under the Pixabay License.