Casino Industry Jobs - A Brief History of Gambling

The exact origin of gambling is unknown. The Chinese recorded the first official account of the practice in 2300 B.C., and it is generally believed that gambling, in one form or another, has been present in almost every society since.

From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Napoleon's France and Elizabethan England, history is rich with tales of exploits based on the games of chance. At the height of the Roman Empire, lawmakers decreed that all children were to be taught to gamble and throw dice. One Roman emperor even designed his carriage to allow dice games while enroute to his official duties. The French are credited with inventing playing cards in 1387, and in 1440 Johann Gutenberg of Germany printed the first full deck of cards.

Many present-day gambling games are incarnations of previous games. The French working class of the sixteenth century became adept at the Egyptian game of roulette, while Napoleon took interest in the card game vingt-et-un - what is now known as blackjack or twenty-one. The English developed a diversion called hazard, the forerunner of today's popular dice-throwing game of craps, and the basis for modern poker games is believed to have originated from a combination of ancient influences including Persian, Italian, and English games of chance. Further refinements to poker include betting techniques introduced by the French and the concept of bluffing developed by the British.

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