Who Invented Poker Game

Hi all, I hope you have enjoyed the Easter. Today we´re going to talk about history. Have you ever wondered when was poker invented? Where was it invented? I thought it might be interesting for you to know something about the history of poker, so that´s the topic of today´s post.

1. Who Invented Poker Game
2. Who Invented Poker

• In 1891, Sittman and Pitt Company invented the first poker machine – the precursor to modern video poker machines. In 1901, Charles Fey invented the “Skill Draw” poker game – the first draw poker machine. Early draw poker machines used only 50 cards so the odds of getting a royal flush were half what they are with a full deck of 52 cards.
• Invented by Derek Webb of the United Kingdom in 1994, Three Card Poker has become the most successful of relatively new, trademarked table games. An initial trial run in Las Vegas brought mixed results, but Three Card Poker then broke through as a popular favorite in the U.S. State of Mississippi.
• Many say Poker is a game of luck but being a data scientist I can surely say that someone who believes that isn't a very good player. I missed playing poker with my friends back in Australia & Vegas. And when I started playing at Pocket52, I realised online poker can equally be fun! I like their humble customer support.
• Many say Poker is a game of luck but being a data scientist I can surely say that someone who believes that isn't a very good player. I missed playing poker with my friends back in Australia & Vegas. And when I started playing at Pocket52, I realised online poker can equally be fun! I like their humble customer support.

The first gambling machine which resembled the slots we know today was one developed by Messrs Sittman and Pitt in New York, which used the 52 cards on drum reels to make a sort of poker game. Around the same time the Liberty Bell machine was invented by a Charles Fey in San Francisco.

Poker has a long history, so today I´m going to focus on the dawn of poker in the 19th century and early 20th century. Yes, we are going all the way to the wild, wild west. But before that, we actually need to visit Europe in the 18th century.

Poque In Europe And New Orleans

It is said poker originates from a domino game played in China in the 10th century. Playing cards were not even invented at that time. However, the card game closest to the modern poker comes from Europe.

Modern poker originates from a European card game poque. Poque was played in France already in the 18th century. French colonists took the game to America. New Orleans became part of the United States in 1803. By the 1820´s, poque had become very popular in New Orleans.

Who Invented Poker Game

Poque was different from the modern poker games. Poque was a very simple game. It was played with a deck of 20 cards instead of 52. Each suit only had an ace, king, queen, jack and ten. Five cards were dealt to four players. Then there was a betting round. Finally, each player still in the hand showed their cards, and the best hand won. The only hands in poque were four of a kind, three of a kind, a pair and a full house.

In the 1820´s, playing poque on riverboats on Mississippi became popular. Gambling was illegal in many states, but not on riverboats. Playing cards on the riverboats was all about cheating. It was even believed to bring bad luck, if there were no con men on board.

Who Invented Poker

The Southern planters used their slaves as gambling stakes. Compared to that, the con men were not so bad.

The Rise Of Modern Poker – 52 Card Deck, Flush And Straight

In the mid 19th century poque got the English name poker, and the game became more like the modern poker. You could say the answer to the question “When was poker invented?” is around here. Texas Hold´Em was not invented yet, but the oldest version of poker was 5 card draw, which is still played today. Read more about 5 card draw and other poker variations on this post.

A 52 card deck replaced the old one which only had 20 cards. Now more than four players could join the game. The flush and straight were included in the hand ranks. The soldiers in the American civil war played poker and brought the game to their homes when the war ended. Poker became popular across the United States.

Strange Rules

The rules of poker were not very stable in the late 19th century. There were some hand ranks which are not recognized in modern poker. A seven high was called a “Tiger” and it beat the straight. You could also have a “Blaze”, which meant having five picture cards. This was better than two pair.

Sometimes there was an “Around-The-Corner-Straight” (for example J-Q-K-A-2) which was ranked higher than 3 of a kind, but lower than a regular straight. There could also be a “One-Gapper-Straight” (for example 5-7-9-J-K), higher in hand rank than 2 pair, but lower than 3 of a kind.

Poker could also be played with “deuces wild”, a rule familiar from video poker. This means all 2s were wild cards, which could be used as any cards. This means you could also have 5 of a kind.

The Wild West And Card-Sharpers

When we think about the wild west in the late 19th century, most of us instantly think about the card players gambling in the saloons. The poker games in the west were far from fair. Like in the Southern riverboats, cheating was an essential part of gambling in the wild west.

In fact, cheating was so common, that there was an industry making equipment for card-sharpers. There were small mirrors hidden in rings and cigarette boxes for peeking at other player´s cards. Different kind of tumblers were used in order to pull cards in to a sleeve.

Many card players did not take being cheated lightly. They attacked the card-sharpers with guns and knives. Poker gained a violent reputation because of this. It actually took a long time for that reputation to fade.

Poker Was Banned – Again.

Maybe it was because of the reputation of the wild west gamblers, that lead to gambling being banned across United States starting from the late 19th century. Poker became a more private game played between friends and families.

Home games resulted in new elements of poker being invented again. Dealer´s choice, lowball and hi-lo variations were introduced.

The Dawn Of Texas Hold´Em

In the 19th century, the poker games played were draw and stud poker games. Texas Hold´Em poker saw the daylight in Robstown, Texas in the early 20th century. There is a story about 12 farmers who wanted to play Stud poker, but they only had one card deck. One of them figured out they could all play, if five community cards were dealt on the table and each player would only get two hole cards.

I do n´t know if this is a true story, but it does make sense to me. Is this not exactly how games are often developed – from practical needs of common people willing to entertain themselves?

Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

So there were anti-gambling laws across United States. Gambling was also banned in Nevada in the 1910´s. However, in court it was legislated, that Texas Hold´Em was a game of skill, while Stud poker was more based on Iuck. Because of that, Stud poker should be banned, but not Texas Hold´Em.

In 1931, Nevada legalized gambling. Las Vegas became the casino capital attracting tourists in the middle of a desert. Poker also became a casino game.

From Riverboats To Casinos – And Where Next?

Poque, a card game played with only 20 cards traveled from France to New Orleans and was played in the Mississippi riverboats in the 19th century. Later, this game got the name poker and the 52 card deck, flush and straight became elements of poker.

Poker was played in the wild west in saloons filled with cards-sharpers. There were many strange rules in poker back then, and poker gained a violent reputation because the card players often carried guns and knives.

Anti-gambling laws were made, and Texas Hold´Em was born in the early 20th century. Nevada made gambling legal in 1931 and poker became a casino game. Las Vegas started attracting gambling tourists.

This is where we finish today. Next time, we will continue with the history of poker in the 20th century. There was the World War II, and the role of Las Vegas was important in making poker as popular game as it is today.

See you in History of Poker Pt. 2!

You may still not know the exact year, but now you should have a better idea when was poker invented. If you have any thoughts on the topic, please share them in the comment section below.

• » History

The history of humanity is inextricably linked with the history of gambling, as it seems that no matter how far back in time you go there are signs that where groups of people gathered together gambling was sure to have been taking place. Now we are not going to attempt to track every single twist and turn in the evolution of gambling in this article, but what we are going to do is to pick out some of the most important dates to act as milestones on the road to today’s gambling experience.

The Earliest Evidence of Gambling

While it is almost certain that some forms of betting have been taking place since the dawn of human history, the earliest concrete evidence comes from Ancient China where tiles were unearthed which appeared to have been used for a rudimentary game of chance. The Chinese ‘Book of Songs’ makes reference to “the drawing of wood” which suggests that the tiles may have formed part of a lottery type game. We have evidence in the form of keno slips which were used in about 200bc as some sort of lottery to fund state works – possibly including construction of the Great Wall of China. Lotteries continued to be used for civic purposes throughout history – Harvard and Yale were both established using lottery funds – and continue to do so until the present day.

Dicing with the Law on the Streets of Ancient Rome

The Greek poet Sophocles claimed that dice were invented by a mythological hero during the siege of Troy, and while this may have somewhat dubious basis in fact, his writings around 500bc were the first mention of dice in Greek history. We know that dice existed far earlier than this, since a pair had been uncovered from an Egyptian tomb from 3000bc, but what is certain is that the Ancient Greeks and Romans loved to gamble on all manner of things, seemingly at any given opportunity. In fact all forms of gambling – including dice games – were forbidden within the ancient city of Rome and a penalty imposed on those caught which was worth four times the stake being bet. As a result of this, ingenious Roman citizens invented the first gambling chips, so if they were nabbed by the guards they could claim to be playing only for chips and not for real money. (Note that this ruse will not work if attempted at a Vegas casino).

Playing your Cards Right in China

Most scholars agree that the first playing cards appeared in China in the 9th century, although the exact rules of the games they were used for have been lost to history. Some suggest that the cards were both the game and the stake, like trading card games played by children today, while other sources believe the first packs of cards to have been paper forms of Chinese domino. Certainly the cards used at this time bore very little relation to the standard 52 card decks we know today.

Baccarat in Italy and France

The earliest game still played in casinos today is the two player card game of Baccarat, a version of which was first mentioned as long ago as the 1400s when it migrated from Italy to France. Despite its early genesis, it took hundreds of years and various evolutions to arrive at the game we know today. Although different incarnations of the game have come and gone, the standard version played in casinos all over the world came from Cuba via Britain to the US, with a few alterations to the rules along the way. Although baccarat is effectively more of a spectator sport than a game, it is a feature of just about every casino due to its popularity with high rolling gamblers.

Blackjack through the Ages

Some suggest that the earliest forms of blackjack came from a Spanish game called ventiuna (21) as this game appeared in a book written by the author of Don Quixote in 1601. Or was it the game of trente-un (31) from 1570? Or even quinze (15) from France decades earlier? As with all of these origin stories, the inventors of games of chance were rarely noted in the historical annals. The French game of vingt-et-un in the seventeenth century is certainly a direct forefather of the modern game, and this is the game that arrived in the US along with early settlers from France. The name ‘blackjack’ was an American innovation, and linked to special promotions in Nevada casinos in the 1930s. To attract extra customers, 10 to 1 odds were paid out if the player won with a black Jack of Clubs or Spades together with an Ace of Spades. The special odds didn’t last long, but the name is still with us today.

First Casinos in Italy

The earliest gambling houses which could reasonably be compared to casinos started to appear in the early 17th century in Italy. For example, in 1638, the Ridotto was established in Venice to provide a controlled gambling environment amidst the chaos of the annual carnival season. Casinos started to spring up all over continental Europe during the 19th century, while at the same time in the US much more informal gambling houses were in vogue. In fact steam boats taking prosperous farmers and traders up and down the Mississippi provided the venue for a lot of informal gambling stateside. Now when we think of casinos we tend to picture the Las Vegas Strip, which grew out of the ashes of the Depression in America.

The Little Wheel in Paris

Roulette as we know it today originated in the gaming houses of Paris, where players would have been familiar with the wheel we now refer to (ironically enough) as the American Roulette wheel. It took another 50 years until the ‘European’ version came along with just one green zero, and generations of roulette players can be grateful for that. During the course of the 19th century roulette grew in popularity, and when the famous Monte Carlo casino adopted the single zero form of the game this spread throughout Europe and most of the world, although the Americans stuck to the original double zero wheels.

Poker: Bust to Boom

It’s hard to pin down the precise origin of poker – as with a lot of the games mentioned here, poker seems to have grown organically over decades and possibly centuries from various different card games. Some have poker’s antecedents coming from seventeenth century Persia, while others say that the game we know today was inspired by a French game called Poque. What we do know for sure is that an English actor by the name of Joseph Crowell reported that a recognizable form of the game was being played in New Orleans in 1829, so that is as good a date as any for the birth of poker. The growth of the game’s popularity was fairly sluggish up until world poker tournaments started being played in Vegas in the 1970s. However poker really exploded with the advent of online poker and televised events allowing spectators to see the players’ hands. When amateur player Chris Moneymaker qualified for and won the 2003 world poker championship after qualifying through online play, it allowed everyone to picture themselves as online poker millionaires.

One Armed Bandits Appear in New York

The first gambling machine which resembled the slots we know today was one developed by Messrs Sittman and Pitt in New York, which used the 52 cards on drum reels to make a sort of poker game. Around the same time the Liberty Bell machine was invented by a Charles Fey in San Francisco. This machine proved much more practical in the sense that winnings could be precisely regulated, and marked the beginning of the real slot game revolution. The fact that some new video slot games still feature bell symbols dates back to this early invention. While early machines spewed out cigars and gum instead of money, the money dispensing versions soon became a staple in bars and casinos around the globe, and when the first video slot was invented in 1976 this paved the way for the online video slots which were to follow.

Gambling in the US: Two Sides of the Same Coin

The United States has always had an up and down relationship with gambling, dating back to when the very first European settlers arrived. Whereas Puritan bands of settlers banned gambling outright in their new settlements, those emigrating from England had a more lenient view of gambling and were more than happy to tolerate it. This dichotomous relationship has continued until now, and in 1910 public pressure led to a nationwide prohibition on gambling. Just like the alcohol prohibition of the same era, this proved somewhat difficult to enforce and gambling continued on in an only slightly discreet manner. The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression that this spawned in the early 1930s led to gambling being legalized again, as for many this was the only prospect of alleviating the grinding poverty which they suffered through. Although gambling is legal in a number of States today –most famously in Las Vegas, Nevada - online gambling is still something of a grey area in the United States. Right now, many international internet casinos are unable to accept American clients, although the signs are that this will change in the near future.

The New Frontier for Gambling

Microgaming is one of the largest casino and slot game developers in the world today, and they are also considered to be pioneers of online gambling. The leap into the world of virtual casinos was taken all the way back in 1994, which in internet terms is kind of like 2300bc! Online gaming was worth over a billion dollars within 5 years, and today is a multibillion dollar industry with over a thousand online casinos and growing. The first live dealer casinos appeared in 2003 courtesy of Playtech, bringing us closer to a hybrid between brick and mortar casinos and the virtual world.

Gambling Has Gone Mobile

Since New Jersey legalized online gambling in 2011, there has been a boom in the interest people have in it. America has seen a move towards legalizing it state by state, as well as experiencing the rapid rise in mobile gambling. Across the globe, internet users are gradually veering away from their desktops and towards their handheld devices. This is true of online gamblers too, wanting to be able to enjoy their favorite games whilst on the go. The top gambling sites out there have recognized a market and have stepped up to deliver. With a wave of impressive mobile focused online gambling destinations taking the world by storm, it's safe to say that desktops are being left far behind in favour of more mobile alternatives.

…The Future

What Comes Next?

It is just about as difficult to predict the future for gambling as it is to uncover some of the origins of the gambling games we know so well today. Much of the focus at the moment is on the mobile gaming market, with online casinos scrambling to make more content compatible with the latest hand held devices. Virtual reality technology is just taking its first steps as a commercial proposition, and you can be sure that there will be gambling applications down the road. How would you like to sit around a virtual poker table with a bunch of your friends from all over the world, share a few laughs, try to tell if you can spot a tell-tale facial tick; and all this from the comfort of your home? VR Headsets can make it happen – maybe not today, but certainly just a few years down the track if technology continues to advance in bounds and leaps.

And after that? Well who knows, but when it comes to gambling all things are possible.

References

• Dice: Game Pieces (Britannica.com)
• Baccarat (card game) (Wikipedia.org)
• Twenty-One (card game) (Wikipedia.org)
• How Casinos Work (HowStuffWorks.com)
• Where Did Poker Originate? (History.com)
• History Of Poker (Wopc.co.uk)
• Chris Moneymaker (Wikipedia.org)
• Historical Interlude (VideoGameHistorian.com)
• Charles Fey and San Francieco's Liberty Bell Slot Machine (California Historical Quarterly)
• Microgaming: About Us (Microgaming.co.uk)
• New Jersey Now Allows Gambling via Internet (NYTimes.com)