A Brief history of gambling

When we talk about gambling usually our mind goes to casinos, baccarat, roulette, lottery, craps etc. But have you ever thought about when or how gambling first originated? The fact is that evidence abounds that gambling origins stretch back to immemorial times.

Dice of various materials and shapes have been recovered from ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Grecian digs. Old cave wall pictures depict early games, and dice-like objects as old as 40,000 years have been found.

There are plenty of references to gambling in ancient literature. Descriptions of games for stakes can be found in Homer, Buddhist texts, and the Jewish Talmud.

Dice games, head and tails, and other games based on ‘luck’ have always been played by different groups.  Special places even existed where people passionate about gambling would go to play. However, unlike the casinos of today, those places carried a bad reputation and it was considered shameful for someone to go there. Even though, in ancient Greece gamblers had the support of a couple of Gods - Hermes and Pan. 

In ancient Rome, gambling was popular even amongst the Emperors. The Romans bet on chariot races and held lotteries for prizes. In Egypt and Islam, gambling was also popular. Cards were first used in China as early as the twelfth century and had spread to Europe by the fourteenth. However, in all cases to some point gambling was regulated, and severe punishment would come upon those that did not abide the rules.

In Europe, the first casino was opened in Venice in 1683. After that, a period of various restrictions followed, regarding gambling and cards, which ended in 1762, when the Redoute Casino opened its doors in Belgium, a casino that remains open to this day under the name of Casino Spa. Other casinos were opened throughout Europe, but gambling was still under legal limitations. In 1858, Le Grand Casino de Monte Carlo was opened — the first all-year casino resort, a paradise for gambling enthusiasts of that age and after this, as the saying goes, the rest is history.

In the United States there were three waves of expansion in the gambling industry. The first wave came in with the landing of the first settlers, but spread with the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, so it started around the early 1600’s and ended in mid 1800’s. The Gold Rush and the Wild West brought with them the second wave of gambling to the US. The first American gambling houses were welcoming travellers to enjoy a game of chance. New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco were home of the most renowned gambling houses, but with the beginning of the 20th Century, the gambling industry was banned. It all lasted until The Great Depression and The Wall Street Crash — the early 1930’s, when it all got legalized again, as a perspective of running away from poverty. In 1931, the entire state of Nevada legalized the gambling industry, paving the course for the young cities of Reno and Las Vegas.

Gambling: modern day

The history of gambling took a sharp turn in the early to mid 1990s as Internet technology began accelerating beyond any geek's wildest imaginations. Just a year later, the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda legislated free trade agreements for casinos online. The first online casino was launched soon thereafter. Other online gaming regulatory bodies quickly came into existence. Online casinos grew and expanded over anything that could have been integrated, from card games to slots and roulette, modern and advanced player-experiences.

However, we all know that the house always wins. Over time, the casino is always sure to make a profit and gamblers have grown to accept this. Problems arise, however, with the lack of transparency that is prone to online casinos. If the gambler cannot be sure that the casino is indeed playing by the rules, he may not want to enter the game at all. Cryptography has made it possible for gambling platforms to prove that there is a good chance for a player to win.

Blockchain technology and smart contracts have taken it to the next level, allowing for more complex systems. PROOF OF TOSS leverages Blockchain technology to create a decentralized betting ecosystem where users can bet on the outcome of an event. The peer to peer solution allows a great amount of wagers to be created by users, wagers that would usually get little to no coverage. Giving the opportunity for players to bet on pretty much anything, from sport event, to weather forecasts, to elections or even a small town event, as long as it’s results will later be published online by a trusted third party. Our platform allows anyone to create wagers, bet and judge – all for the sake of winning! The PROOF OF TOSS ecosystem satisfies the interests of all participants of the betting market and introduces blockchain opportunities for traditional operators.

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