The history of casinos - for future casino dealers

The name ‘Casino’ comes from the Italian ‘Casa’, meaning house. The word soon came to mean a building that has been built for pleasures sake – for entertainment such as civic town functions that included music and dancing, eating, and gambling. In modern Italian, this is now known as a bordello, while a gambling house is referred to as a casinò. 

Not all casinos were gambling houses. The Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island housed gambling as well as sports games and competitions, while the Copenhagen Casino was a mass public meeting place, and later, a famous theatre. 

No one knows when the first instance of gambling took place, but the first record of it taking place can be traced to China in 2300BC. However, gambling in one form or another is thought to have been around almost as long as humans have. Gambling has been a popular practice in almost every society too – from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the Elizabethans and more. 

The first casino to be recorded in Europe was in Venice. It opened its doors in 1638 during the carnival season, and it entertained the gambling crowds every year throughout carnival season until 1770. In this year, the casino was closed down by the government, when they became worried about the city nobility’s gambling debts. 

The first casinos to emerge in American history were the saloons, with important cities including San Francisco, St. Louis, Chicago and New Orleans. Gambling and casinos were outlawed in the early 1900s, but then legalised in 1931 in the state of Nevada and its city of Las Vegas – a place now synonymous with casino gambling. 

Casinos have grown from humble public buildings to vast developments that incorporate luxury hotels, theatres, zoos, music venues, shopping malls and more. Their most recent incarnation is online. With the advance of the internet, players can now enjoy all of their favourite casino games online at any time of the day.  

Many online casinos have already begun to expand and develop to incorporate other games and online sports betting. One of the most popular online casinos, 32 Red, recently added an online bingo arm to their ever-expanding online gaming network, with many online casinos now following suit.