Casino Gambling History Overview
Gambling practices are considered to be among the most ancient and popular human activities. With the development of human civilization special establishments to organize gambling were introduced. These establishments are known as casinos.
In the course of casino gambling history, casinos have changed dramatically and nowadays we witness further development of casino gambling which is now transferred to the Internet cyberspace. Nevertheless, it is important to get acquainted with the main stages of casino gambling history to see how it all began.
The origin of land-based casinos
The term “casino” itself comes from the Italian casa for home. Land casino history began in XVII ct. when first casinos actually meant for gambling alone were first established in Italy, the Venetian Ridotto being the first of them established in 1638. Before then casinos were places offering various entertainments like listening to music, dancing, gambling and even prostitution service (besides, gambling wasn’t necessarily included in the list of casino services at all).
The second half of the XIX century was marked by introducing some of the most famous gambling sites. Some of these still exist, like the first casino established in Monte Carlo in 1861.
American casino gambling history began with establishment of the so called saloons and is mostly associated with the cities of New Orleans, San Francisco, St. Louis and Chicago. Casino gambling in the US was made illegal in the first decades of the XX ct., but in 1931 it was allowed in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada and in 1978 first casinos in Atlantic City were opened.
Nowadays the most popular live casino gambling destinations still are Vegas Strip, Atlantic City and Monte Carlo.
Online casinos emergence
With the development of technology, an opportunity occurred to introduce virtual casinos on the Internet. These are known as online casinos. Online casino history is incredibly short. The first online casinos were established in 1995 and since then were further developed into what we witness nowadays: virtually simulated advanced versions of land-based casinos. Online casinos offer various services to attract more and more players from all over the world:
Online vs. land casino
With the development of online casinos traditional land-based casino gambling sites have lost part of their popularity among players. Some of the factors defining the continually growing popularity of online casinos are:
