History of Casino
Here are some important milestones in the history of gambling and casinos.
In 1387 the French invent playing cards.
In 1726 The Netherlands form what is now the oldest lottery still in operation.
It is believed that the first legal casino opened in Baden, Switzerland, in 1765. The word "casino" is actually Italian and means "little house". Today the casino gambling industry has become one of the biggest businesses in the world.
In 1941 the El Rancho Vegas Hotel-Casino was built on what would later become the Las Vegas strip.
Around 1995 the first online sportsbooks and casinos were launched. Since then the Internet gaming business has expanded considerably, and today there are several thousands of online casinos.
The term "Casino" is of Italian origin, the root word being "Casa" (house) and originally meant a small country villa, summerhouse or pavilion. The word changed to refer to a building built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. Such buildings were used to host civic town functions – including dancing, music listening and gambling.
There are examples of such casinos at Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese. In modern day Italian, this term designates a bordello (also called "casa chiusa", literally "closed house"), while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent.
During the 19th century, the term "casino" came to include other public buildings where pleasurable activities, including gambling, and sports took place. An example of this type of building is the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island.
Gambling Houses
The precise origin of gambling is unknown. The Chinese recorded the first official account of the practice in 2300 BC, but it is generally believed that gambling in some form or another has been seen in almost every society in history. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Napoleon's France and Elizabethan England, much of history is filled with stories of entertainment based on games of chance.
The first known European gambling house, not called a casino although meeting the modern definition, was the Ridotto, established in Venice, Italy in 1638 to provide controlled gambling during the carnival season. It was closed in the 1770 as the city government perceived it to impoverish the local gentry.
In American history, early gambling establishments were known as saloons. The creation and importance of saloons was greatly influenced by four major cities; New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco. It was in the saloons that travelers could find people to talk to, drink with, and often gamble with. During the early 20th century in America, gambling became outlawed and banned by state legislation and social reformers of the time. However, in 1931, gambling was legalized throughout the state of Nevada, along with Las Vegas and Reno. America's first legalized casinos were set up in those places. In 1978 New Jersey allowed gambling in Atlantic City, now America's second largest gambling city.
In most jurisdictions worldwide, gambling is limited to persons over the age of license (16 to 21 years of age in most countries where casinos are permitted).[5]
Customers gamble by playing games of chance, in some cases with an element of skill, such as craps, roulette, baccarat, blackjack, and video poker. Most games played have mathematically-determined odds that ensure the house has at all times an advantage over the players. This can be expressed more precisely by the notion of expected value, which is uniformly negative (from the player's perspective). This advantage is called the house edge. In games such as poker where players play against each other, the house takes a commission called the rake. Casinos sometimes give out complimentary items to gamblers.
Payout is the percentage won by players.
THE GAMES
Black Jack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un (French : "twenty-one"), is the most widely played casino banking game in the world.[1] Blackjack is a comparing card game played with one or more French decks of 52 cards. The player draws cards to an initial two card hand with the object of bringing the total hand value as close as possible to 21 without exceeding it, so that the house, which plays after the player, will stop short of the player's total, or will lose by exceeding 21. Many rule variations of blackjack exist. Since the 1960s, blackjack has been a high profile target of advantage players, particularly card counters, who track the profile of cards yet to be dealt, and adapt their wager and playing strategy accordingly. Other casino games inspired by blackjack include Spanish 21 and pontoon. The recreational British card game of black jack is a shedding-type game and unrelated to the subject of this article.
Caribbean Poker
To play, every player places his ante on a marked spot on the table playing surface ("the layout") where indicated; all ante wagers must be placed prior to the dealer announcing "No more bets". Each player also has the option to participate in the progressive jackpot feature of the game. This is also done before the dealer announces "no more bets", by dropping a chip in the slot on the table which activates the progressive jackpot light for that seat and that particular hand of play. Each player and the dealer will then receive five cards, face down. The dealer will turn over one of his cards, then push the cards toward the players, after which the players may look at their cards. They may only look at their own cards, and may not discuss what they have with any other players at the table.
Players have the option to play or fold; if they choose to play, they place their bets (twice the amount of their respective ante) in the bet box. If they choose to fold, they forfeit their ante. After all the players have made their decisions, the dealer reveals his hole cards. The dealer only plays with an ace/king or higher; they then compare their cards to the other players' cards (individually, right to left), and the players' hands that beat the dealer's qualifing hand wins.
Roulette
Roulette is a casino game named after a French diminutive for little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number or a range of numbers, the colors red or black, or whether the number is odd or even.
To determine the winning number and color, a croupier spins a wheel in one direction, then spins a ball in the opposite direction around a tilted circular track running around the circumference of the wheel. The ball eventually loses momentum and falls on to the wheel and into one of 37 (in French/European roulette) or 38 (in American roulette) colored and numbered pockets on the wheel.
The first form of roulette was devised in 18th century France. Blaise Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine.[2] The roulette wheel is believed to be a fusion of the English wheel games Roly-Poly, Reiner, Ace of Hearts, and E.O., the Italian board games of Hoca and Biribi, and "Roulette" from an already existing French board game of that name.
The game has been played in its present form since as early as 1796 in Paris. An early description of the roulette game in its current form is found in a French novel La Roulette, ou le Jour by Jaques Lablee, which describes a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris in 1796. The description included the house pockets, "There are exactly two slots reserved for the bank, whence it derives its sole mathematical advantage." It then goes on to describe the layout with, "…two betting spaces containing the bank's two numbers, zero and double zero." The book was published in 1801. An even earlier reference to a game of this name was published in regulations for New France (Québec) in 1758, which banned the games of "dice, hoca, faro, and roulette.
In the 19th century, roulette spread all over Europe and the U.S.A., becoming one of the most famous and most popular casino games. When the German government abolished gambling in the 1860s, the Blanca family moved to the last legal remaining casino operation in Europe at Monte Carlo, where they established a gambling mecca for the elite of Europe. It was here that the single zero roulette wheel became the premier game, and over the years was exported around the world, except in the United States where the double zero wheel had remained dominant. Some[who?] call roulette the "King of Casino Games", probably because it was associated with the glamour of the casinos in Monte Carlo.
A legend tells François Blanc supposedly bargained with the devil to obtain the secrets of roulette. The legend is based on the fact that the sum of all the numbers on the roulette wheel (from 1 to 36) is 666, which is the "Number of the Beast".
Casino Movies
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
The most classic poker movie of them all. Steve McQueen is the Cincinnati Kid. Starring Steve McQueen, Ann Margret, Edward G. Robinson, Karl Malden and Tuesday Weld.
The Sting (1973)
Probably one of the best and most classic of all gambling related movies. Newman and Redford play two clever con artists seeking revenge against a gangster. Good music too. Starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw.
Rounders (1998)
The poker movie from the 90s, with John Malkovich as the Russian gangster "Teddy KGB" and Edward Norton in one of his earliest roles. Starring Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, Famke Janssen and Gretchen Mol.
Ocean's Eleven (1960)
The original casino heist movie from 1960. Starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Angie Dickinson.
Indecent Proposal (1993)
A couple goes to Las Vegas to try their luck... Starring Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson.
Casino (1995)
Martin Scorsese's film about Vegas and the mafia during the 70s. Loosely based on a true story. Starring Robert DeNiro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci.