The number one favourite leisure activity hasn’t changed in the last 3000 years. Playing casino and betting games with popular games like Blackjack, Roulette, Sports Betting or Poker still attracts many people every day! Millions go and try their luck every night in one of the thousands of casinos worldwide. For everyone who ever visited Las Vegas knows what I mean. Huge hotels which are open 24 hours full equipped with thousands of slot machines, poker tables etc to supply everyone’s need! And places like Las Vegas can be found everywhere in the world; Macau, Sydney, Amsterdam, Sao Paulo and the list could go on for ever!
And this phenomenon has not been started since the 19th century. Gambling including betting as we know today is as old as 2300 B.C. Officially the Chinese and the Greeks started the first casino related games however it is chrystal clear that in some way or another in each culture some form of gambling was already part of society, from the Indians of the Andes to the Pygmies in Africa!
The Egyptians invented the game of Roulette and the Romans 2000 years ago where very fond of casino games and gambling as well. At the height of the Roman Empire, lawmakers decided 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 first card games where invented by the French in 1387 and in 1440 a rich German printed the first full deck of cards.
Napoleon favorite game was Blackjack or twenty-one which the French developed and today’s 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.
20th century
While bricks and mortal casinos are and will be popular for the next 2000 years, nowadays millions more play online casinos at home as well. Since the start of the internet, gambling related items were one of the early adopters at the World Wide Web! If you Google “casino” you will find more then 100 million search results. This amazing numbers shows already the massive offer of Casino and gambling sites currently offered online. Nobody really knows precisely how many play online casino games but estimations range from tens of millions to hundreds of millions!
But as every technique evolves the same is happening with online casinos! People in the 21st century are very busy, always on the move and a structural lack of time. Therefore you see a general trend in using their time more efficient including leisure time!
This resulted in a new invention of the casino industry: Mobile Casinos and Mobile Sports betting! Now you can play popular casino gales like poker or blackjack while you are on the move, waiting for friends or just when hanging on the couch. The mobile casino games work the same as their online cousins and the mobile casino bonuses are often the same or even better then online casinos! The security is from the same high level and with the introduction of the smart phones the sound and colour effect are the state of the art! Nowadays already more then 1 million people play casino games on their mobile and this amount will grow significant every month. Looking at the popularity of mobile casinos the question is not if but when mobile casinos will overtake the number of online casinos. Some experts reckon it will be before 2020!
So the future of casinos and betting will be long and certainly not dull!