A Bet with History: Gambling Through the Ages

It's been said that God plays dice with the universe. Man, however, has been gambling with dice throughout history.

Gambling has literally been around since the dawn of mankind. There has been actual archaeological evidence to support this; from 40,000 year-old Astragali dice made of bone and cave paintings depicting gambling activities, to pairs of dice unearthed from the ancient ruins of Pompeii.

Ancient gambling relics have turned up in cultures as diverse as China, Greece, Egypt and Rome. A gambling game that was played using tiles was devised in China at around 2300 B.C., while Greek soldiers some 1100 years later were quite fond of playing with dice, despite gambling being illegal in ancient Greece. Ivory dice dated as being from 1599 B.C. had been uncovered in Egypt.

Ancient Romans were found to have been quite enamored with gambling. Claudius had his carriage renovated in order for it to have more room to throw dice. The mad emperor Caligula had his knights' properties confiscated in order to pay for his gambling debts. It was even decreed by Roman law that all children were required to learn the art of gambling.

In the 14th century, King Henry VIII was known to be a hopeless gambler. But even the insatiable English king was forced to outlaw gambling when he found out that his soldiers spent way too much time gambling than in honing their combat skills.

Native Americans believed that games of chance were created by the gods themselves, and gambled with dice made from stones painted black or white. Aside from gambling, the Native Americans believed playing dice helped to divine the future, bless their crops, and cure illnesses.

At the time of the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army funded lotteries. A federal lottery was sponsored in 1793 to fund the development of the District of Columbia; its first ticket was bought by none other than George Washington himself. Virtually every state government followed suit, and more than 420 state lotteries had been sanctioned by the 1830's. The lottery continued to become a popular fund-raising system well into the 18th and 19th centuries.

The emergence of riverboats and frontier towns in the New World presented new venues for gambling, both legal and illegal. In the days of the untamed west, gambling could be a very hazardous enterprise and an upstart gambler would be putting more than his money at stake. The gambling public didn't suffer the so-called "sharpers" or professional gamblers, and such cheaters and con artists would often find themselves lynched out of town.

State lotteries were later targeted by moralists and most of them were outlawed after the Civil War ended. When the Louisiana lottery was exposed for blatant swindling in the 1890's, Congress banned the lotteries outright. Gambling in general was made illegal in the state of Nevada in 1910.

In the 1920's, the Prohibition forced both gambling and drinking to go underground. As the restrictions set by the Prohibition era were gradually lifting by the 1930's, betting on horse races was legalized. In Nevada, gambling once more became legal in 1931, and the state would eventually become a Mecca for gambling activity. In 1978, Atlantic City legalized gambling as well, and many states have their own forms of legalized gambling since then.

Gambling has been said to be man's oldest pastime. It has been looked at as a vice, a bad habit. But the fact that man has yet to kick this bad habit since time immemorial may perhaps mean that gambling is simply part of human nature. And history will vouch for that.