Long History of Gambling and Casinos

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. Gambling always was and will be an important part of history and prevailing form of entertainment for rich and poor all alike.



Sometimes 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.