Nowadays, players have the option to choose from a wide variety of games of chance. From the thrill of online roulette to the challenge of beating the dealer in online blackjack, all options are yours. Whether online slots, baccarat or pokeronline, you can play a wide variety of games. Most importantly, you can access them through apps at any time, within seconds, and anywhere. But it wasn’t always like that. Below we would like to give you an overview of how gambling sites have developed over time and how it became what it is today.
The first signs of casino games
The first signs of game development can be found a long time ago. It is likely that ancient China used tiles to play a kind of game of chance. The first playing cards can already be found in the 9th century, even if it is of course no longer clear how exactly they were used or what their exact purpose was.
People in ancient Greece used the first dice, and this is where the origin of why a double of six still means luck can be found today. Back then, a double six won the game, and doubles have been associated with luck and victory ever since.
The typical casino games also looked back on a long history and were not first launched with the glittering world of Las Vegas. The oldest of these games is baccarat. Like most of the games we know today, it has its origins in Italy and France. A variant for two players can even be dated back to the 15th century. Of course, baccarat has been adapted and changed over the years, but some of the game’s basic rules have still remained to this day.
Blackjack
The French also invented blackjack around 1600, but there are also people who claim that the game was made earlier. However, what is certain is that blackjack was also being spread in the USA by emigrants from France at that time. In addition, the first casinos opened their doors at this time, but they were still called playhouses at that time.
Roulette
Roulette also comes from France, where it was invented around 1796. Interestingly, the French still played it with a double zero on the wheel back then, as is common in the American version of the game. It wasn’t until fifty years later that the single zero established itself in what we know as European roulette. Today both variants are played all over the world.
Poker and slots
The first signs of poker and the first slot machines – now the most popular casino games – can be found in the 16th century. The exact origins for poker are unknown, however, and since we know that playing cards were known well before 1829, it is possible that a similar game was played earlier. 1829 is therefore considered to be the birth of the famous card game, as it was in that year that a well-known English actor in New Orleans played for the first time according to the rules, some of which still apply today.
Slot machines did not appear until 1891 when the first one-armed bandits arrived in New York, but at that time, they spat out chewing gum and cigarettes as prizes instead of cash.
The world of online casino is growing
So gambling was already very popular back then, and over the decades people kept inventing new games to have fun and enjoy themselves. However, until 1900, gambling was banned in many regions of the world – a fact that soon changed.
Like no other city, Las Vegas is iconic for the world of gambling. Casino paradise began to cement its reputation as the number one location for gamblers from all over the world in the 1930s. The first step was to establish the casinos as an alternative to the gambling houses of the time. A new era of gambling was proclaimed, which was above all about good entertainment and attracted people from all over the world to Nevada. In the decades that followed, more and more celebrities came to Las Vegas to see the attractions and have fun.
Technology Is Changing Gambling
The development of new technologies affects almost every area of our lives and online casino is no exception. The first arcade games appeared in the 1930s, and their popularity rose rapidly from that point on. The biggest hit was the coin-operated machines. In the decades that followed, gambling continued to develop. Until finally, computer scientists worked on the development and the games became more and more advanced in the computer age. And the ever greater successes of the land based casinos in Las Vegas in terms of turnover and visitor numbers also made a decisive contribution to gambling’s further development.
The first video slot machines came out in the 1970s and offered a whole new and unique gambling way. IGT, still one of the most important companies in the field of game technology, was founded during this time and built the first slot machines with reels and paylines as we know them today. At the same time, video poker became increasingly popular and more and more slot machines with jackpots emerged – even if the winnings from then cannot be compared with those you can win today!
The rapid transformation of online casinos
It is fair to say that modern technology has catapulted real money games into another world and has given gambling more to offer players today than ever before. In 1994 Microgaming introduced the first online game that set the tone in the digital advancement of gambling. And in the 1990s, Las Vegas experienced another boom. Everyone wanted to have fun there and try the different types of exciting games of chance that were on offer there.
Since then, gambling has evolved year after year in mobile and digital terms. Whether through bigger jackpots, more paylines or improved graphics and better gaming options – the quality of gaming has steadily increased. As early as 1999, the games industry was worth a billion dollars.
In 2000, the first players hit seven-figure winnings, which took online casino to a new level. And just a few years later, the first live casino turned into an online casino, which enabled users to bring the gaming experience right into their living room. While mobile gaming was well established at the time, it made significant progress in 2007 by adapting the desktop user interface and making the gaming experience more and more realistic in digital terms.
And the best online casinos continued to develop in the years that followed. Quality, realism, payment methods and the selection of games are better today than ever, and because of the digital advancement, there is certainly no end in sight.
This brings us to the end of our consideration of the development of online casinos. And we are sure you will agree that digital opportunities are making online casino better today than ever before!