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Nowadays, online gambling is more than accessible. Just grab a Betwinner promo code and gamble on the go with a casino app. Here you are — you’ve won big money!
However, where does gambling originate from? How did it appear? What was its point?
Read on to uncover all the most significant facts ever!
It doesn’t matter if it was about throwing dice, dealing cards or spinning roulette, what counted was the thrill and conviction of favourable luck. A few have built their fortunes in casinos, but the multitudes have lost everything they had.
Nevertheless, there is no shortage of takers. Where does this urge to gamble come from? What do shamans, hunters and dealers have in common? Today we look at where many have lost their family fortune.
You Can Bet Almost Everything
Gambling is usually associated with casinos and the games offered in them, such as blackjack, roulette, dice or machines similar to one-armed bandits.
After a while, we will remember games played in the streets with
- Three cards or cups
- Lotto-type lotteries
- Scratch cards, and even
- Horse races.
Once we get out of thinking about casinos, we’re getting to the heart of the matter, because you can insist on almost anything.
Predicting the results of
- Sports games
- Other events from politics to the weather
- Animal fights from dogs to insects
- Coin toss or even
- A stick.
The gambler could even bet on which of the two drops on the window of a speeding train would reach the window frame first.
Evolved gambling was tempting for many reasons. The elites flocked to him to show how low they value money. Layers aspiring to show themselves around the elites followed.
Everyone who thought that their luck would help them make good fortune followed. In the end, gamblers also followed, catching easy prey. In the early days of gambling, however, it wasn’t about money at all. Its origins are much more rooted in religion than we think.
Let The God Speak
It is easy to guess that gambling did not come along with casinos. Already thousands of years before our era, people reached for the original forms of games that we play today. Only they had a different purpose.
The key was to reach for some accidental event and skillfully read its meaning. Of course, superstitious people believed these events were signals from the deity. A good arrangement testified to the favour of a higher power, and, thus a chance for success. On the contrary, a bad arrangement, which was a good argument for abandoning the action.
In this way, divination was made from the liver of a ritually killed animal (Etruscans and Greeks), from a coconut shell, from a broken egg, and parts of the body. One of the most popular ways of divination was reading from a scattered handful of small objects (pebbles, sticks, bones, etc.).
Originally a sacred ritual of the Sumerians and later the Romans, it was to evolve into the entertainment we know as dice. Initially, sheep and goat ankle bones were used due to their shape, giving a greater chance of random arrangement. The talus has four roughly equal sides where it can stop. Each of them had its meaning, thanks to which the meaning hidden in the whole system was read.
Further Development
Divination, however, was not always clearly sacred. When the hunter threw some object to show him the way after the game, he turned to the god for advice, but he could also convince himself of his luck.
Over time, such lucky people began to reach for a chance to compete with others. The winner was favoured by the deity, he was lucky, and he won the pot in the process. In this way, the entertaining side of gambling gradually developed.
The peoples of Asia were not too far behind Europe here. In China, gambling (po, cockfighting, horse and dog racing) was practised several centuries before our era. By the end of the first millennium CE. they were familiar with lotteries and square dice from Europe.
These dice quickly evolved into a version of Chinese dominoes.
The Age Of Machines
Another breakthrough came at the end of the 19th century when the first simple gambling machines were constructed.
From then on, the slots held the player’s fate. Of course, the ubiquity of these machines is associated with colossal profits for their owners. Despite the still popular games requiring a dealer, more and more investments went to machines.
Today, when we enter the casino, we will be struck by the amusement park of colours.
The lights of various drawing machines are flashing everywhere. Almost all games can be played on machines. Even roulette. Further changes were brought about by the end of the 20th century.
Gambling is increasingly moving to the Internet, where you can bet without leaving home.
Although gambling is banned in many places and by various groups, it enjoys unflagging popularity. Places such as Macao, Monte Carlo or Las Vegas are well-known and respected gambling tourism destinations.
This is amazing because all casinos are based on the fact that everyone will lose in the long run.
And the vast majority fail. However, the knowledge that one has succeeded will tempt ten more willing to earn an easy income. Each willing has the impression that his “god” (whatever he calls it) favours him and will not let him lose. A fortune was lost this way.
