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The History of Real Money Gambling
Most people probably don't realize that gambling was a large part of the British colonies of America. All the thirteen original colonies established lotteries to raise money. Some of these lotteries even helped to found libraries, churches and some of the most prestigious universities, such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton. The Continental Congress even voted for a ten million dollar lottery to finance the War of Independence.
But lotteries were not the only form of gambling at this time. Betting on horse racing was also popular though far from the organized betting of today. Taverns and roadside inns allowed games of dice and cards but really organized gambling started in the 1800's on the Mississippi. New Orleans became the center of gambling in America where many of the games later popular in the West were born: faro, brag, hazard, poker and blackjack. All of them evolved from popular European games that probably originated in the Renaissance.
Movement to the West
Around the mid-1800's gambling moved from the Mississippi out to California with the Gold Rush. Gamblers were risk takers, and miners were risk takers. It was easy to see how the two would join together. As the Gold Rush progressed, San Francisco took the place of New Orleans as the center for gambling.
At its highest point, around 1850, the games played in gambling establishments were mostly faro, brag, monte and some dice games. Poker and blackjack were almost unheard of. Faro was the most popular and many famous Wild West shooters, such as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, were faro players, dealers and faro-bank owners.
The only way to really make a profit at faro was by cheating, but when the gambling regulators began to move into casinos in the 1900's, faro faded out and was replaced by poker, craps and blackjack.
End of Widespread Gambling
The anti-gaming laws that began to take effect in the 1890's soon ended San Francisco's grand gambling days. More and more of the states in the U.S. outlawed gambling and casinos, and today we only have Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City and some of the Indian Reservations.
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