The history of online casino games

History of online casino games

Nowadays a lot of different games are available online and people spend more and more time playing them. A large part of the success of Facebook itself is in no small part due to their games such as Farmville and Texas Hold’em. Gambling games are one lucrative segment of online gaming and one question one may have is: what is the origin of these casino games?

The oldest forms of games played by humans are dice and card games. Regarding card games played at casinos, Baccarat is the oldest one, and Poker, as well as Blackjack, came later. Note that all these modern card games as we know them derive from a number of card games played in the Middle Age, which slowly evolved over time to reach the final versions of today.

Baccarat is the oldest casino game as it is believed to have appeared as soon as 1480 in Italy. It quickly became the favorite game of royalty and nobility and as such is one of the original games when casinos appeared all over Europe in the eighteenth century. This card game was made popular by the James Bond movies as Chemin de Fer (one of the Baccarat versions) is his favorite game. More recently James Bond plays Texas Holdem, which shows that online poker is currently the favorite card game.

Talking of poker it is even newer than blackjack in casinos and for a long time, it was not offered at all there. Poker originated in the United States primarily on the Mississippi River steamboats and took a lot of variations over time, from draw poker, stud poker until the most recent versions were invented and the latest one is Omaha poker which only appeared in casinos in the last few years.

Blackjack is a newer game also but it precedes poker in casinos. The reason is that in blackjack the player plays against the dealer, in other words, the house, so this game is a certain income provider, especially as the house edge is good unless the player plays perfect basic or advanced strategy. And most don’t. On the other hand in poker, players play against each other, so it was not so clear how profitable it could be. But with the rise on online poker casinos had to follow and they now all over it either as cash games or tournaments.

Other games
Roulette is like Baccarat one of the original games at casinos when it was invented in Europe and immediately became a necessary feature at all live casinos. Hundreds of year later things have not changed much as roulette is still the game best-representing casinos.

Another type of game is the slots machines and these appeared around 1890. Initially, they were used to fill some unused space at casinos but they became over the years the most played games and take a large part of casino space nowadays. And they contribute to a large chunk of casino profits.