Here at CasinoOnline.com.au we have a passion for casino games. We believe that the more you know, the more you will enjoy playing and winning. Casino games have a long and fascinating history, and online gambling has revolutionized the industry, making it more available to people across the world.
Want to learn more about the history of casino games? Read on and find out how long gambling has been around, the history of certain well-lived casino games and how online gambling has revolutionized the industry.
The roots of gambling run deep in human history. Gambling has been around since the oldest civilizations. Almost every ancient civilization on Earth had gambling in one form or another. The earliest betting games are thought to have started in China, around 2300 BC. Gambling was also extremely popular in ancient Rome, India and Egypt.
In ancient Rome, every child in the empire is believed to have been taught how to gamble and throw dice as a right of passage. As far as card games go, these date back to Fourteenth century France. The French started playing card games in 1387, and Johann Gutenberg in Germany printed the very first full deck of cards in 1440. During the Eighteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte especially loved the card game vingt-et-un, or as we know it, Blackjack.
The French love a good game of Roulette. Although this game in its modern form came about in Eighteenth century France, it is thought to have been based on an ancient Egyptian betting game,
Today, we associate gambling with fun and excitement as we play either online or in-person, but gambling was not always just for fun. Take the story of King Olaf of Sweden and King Olaf of Norway for example. When these two kings had a dispute over who owned a piece of land on their shared border, they didn’t solve their problem with violence or money; they solved it with a simple game of dice! King Olaf of Norway won the game, and the land along with it.
Poker, as we know it today, is an example of how different cultures can influence the same game. Poker evolved from a combination of Persian and Italian card games, and was influenced by the French who introduced betting, and the British who introduced bluffing.
The very first casinos were established in the Seventeenth century. One of the oldest, Casino di Venezia is still in use today in Venice, Italy! On the other side of the Atlantic, the U.S.A. opened their first casino in the early Twentieth century. 1931 was the year that certain states, including Nevada, legalized gambling. El Rancho Casino was one of the first to open in Nevada in 1941. Their huge success paved the way for the development of Las Vegas, which is today associated with Hollywood glitz and glamour due to the huge draw of the city’s many luxurious casinos.
Australia’s very first legal casino opened up in February 1973. The Wrest Point Hotel Casino is located in Tasmania. The Wrest Point Riviera Hotel was a booming spot during World War I when Australia's largest hotel group, Federal Hotels, bought the hotel. The Federal Group wanted to attract more tourists to Tasmania - which was known by locals for its gorgeous landscape but not a hot tourist destination. Today the casino includes a seventeen-story tower with a revolving restaurant, a conference centre and a boardwalk. Wrest Point was the catalyst for Australia’s national casino industry. In just a few decades, we have seen the opening of twelve more casinos across Australia.
Australia has a lot of love for gambling - over 80% of adults partake in some sort of gambling, the highest number in the world! In recent years since online gambling came about, the Commonwealth has been more active in regulating the industry. Today there are over eight regulatory agencies for gambling in Australia. Luckily for us, the government does not tax gambling winnings. The Australian government does not view gambling winnings as an income source, but rather as a stroke of good luck.
Unsurprisingly, the history of online gambling begins right at the same time when the Internet first came around. We love to gamble, and we will certainly take any opportunity to do so! Internet gambling makes it even easier to experience the fun and excitement of a casino environment right from your own home.
The very first gambling software was developed in the 1970s but at that time was limited to in-house casinos. In the 1990s Internet gambling really started to take off because people had computers in their homes and could readily access the Internet. Online gambling has completely revolutionized the industry and made it much more accessible to people in their own homes.
In 1994, the popularity of online gambling had taken off so rapidly that the first regulatory agency was created. The same year, the Free Trade & Processing Act was passed in the Caribbean. This legislation paved the way for even more online casinos, which grew in numbers so quickly that revenue was expected to hit seventeen billion dollars by the year 2009!
The first software developer to provide online casino games that you could download and play on your home computer was Microgaming. Microgaming and other early companies such as Cryptologic, who helped make online transactions more secure, paved the way for thousands of entrepreneurs eager to get in on this lucrative business.
In 1998, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act was introduced. The act was meant to make online gambling illegal in the United States - but it failed. The act was revised in 1999 but still failed to pass. That same year, Australia’s first government-licensed online casino, Lasseter's, went online. At this point there has been nothing to stop the online gaming industry, with millions of users all over the globe every day.
Today online games are so lifelike that they can recreate the suspense, the excitement and the fun of in-person casinos. You can chat online with other players, view statistics of various games, and do almost anything that is available to you in a live casino!
To some people, online gambling has become more of a career than a hobby. To protect users, a lot of commissions and watchdog groups have been created. These groups ensure that online casinos remain fair and safe for their millions of users.
Online gambling is still growing as an industry. In 2007, Belgium, opened their online gambling industry. Countries all over the world are looking to get in on this business! Today, the world record for the largest payout from an online gambling site was six million, three hundred thousand Euros! The jackpots continue to grow everyday - online gambling is booming, to say the least!
