Follow Up on History of Casinos
In this follow up on history of casinos, we will have a look at how the well known brick and mortar casino took the leap into the virtual world, and how casinos have become such an integral part of so many cultures, thus ingraining themselves in their histories.
Casinos and Cultures
When we think of casinos and the follow up on history of casinos, we automatically think of the big glitzy gaming houses of Las Vegas and even Monte Carlo. We don’t think about the small charity based casinos that offer a vital lifeline to their communities. Many of these casinos are in the United States, and belong to First Nations, but there are others all over the world that serve the same purpose. Some of these charity casinos are even annual, and only open during festivals for a few months or weeks of the year.
These casinos mostly started as raffles and bingo tables, but in the late 1980’s tribes all over America applied for licences to run class three casino games, which included slot machines and table games. Due to the fact that these were charity casinos, they had to have a different tax system, as well as a slightly different kind of licence. Mostly they were refused licenses but that did not stop them applying again and again, and petitioning the various states in which their lands were a part of to create a specific casino scenario just for them.
Eventually the tribes won out, and casinos were legalized in tribal lands in many states where they are illegal otherwise. Some of these First Nations casinos are huge, and in Vegas Style, but many of them are small operations attracting a moderate amount of patrons both from locals as well as tourists. The proceeds of these casinos go back into their communities, and are used for various things such as education and the building a community structures such as hospitals.
Online Casinos
Another aspect to look at in the follow up on history of casinos is how brick and mortar casinos made the leap to becoming virtual, and incredibly popular. Online casinos have a very short history, as the virtual world is still a pretty new concept in the greater scheme of things. Only having been around for the last 20 years or so, they are none the less such a part of today’s society that many of the younger generation cannot even fathom a world without them.
It is difficult to pin point exactly when the first online casino opened, but most people believe that the concept was born around 1994. This came about when the island of Antigua and Barbuda passed its free Trade and Processing Act, the first of its kind worldwide. This was the same year that the online casino giant MicroGaming was formed. They claim to be the first company to offer a fully functioning online casino which used real money, called The Gaming Club. A number of other companies however have made the same claims, and it is a bit difficult to work out who exactly came first. The early casinos were very basic, and almost unrecognisable from the super high tech virtual hubs that we have today. The games were fairly limited and the graphics were very basic. Needless to say MicroGaming and other companies like Cryptologic took to the challenge, and poured huge amounts of money into developing software, and as more companies caught on to the rapidly growing trend online casinos improved in leaps and bounds into what we have today.
