What Are the Most Popular Games to Play in a Casino?
If you go to a casino like the Bicycle Casino Hotel, you will be exposed to games old and new. Some of the old games, which are still incredibly popular today, date back to some of the planet’s earliest civilizations. Ancient societies in both China and Italy were gambling, as were the Ancient Egyptians, who even created dice from ivory. In 18th century United Kingdom, people started to come together in public facilities to gamble for the first time, which is the birth of casinos. The game played at that time was craps.
Games and Their Origins
Craps has been well-documented, but so has Keno. This is the gambling game with the worst odds of all, and it was first played in the Han Dynasty of China. Here, some 120 characters would be taken from a popular poem to play it. Later, in Europe, other types of lottery games were developed. However, it was Keno that was brought to American through San Francisco, when Chinese immigrants started to arrive. In America, however, numbers rather than characters were used, and the amount was dropped to 80. Yet the odds remained equally poor.
Card games date back to the 9th century, again being developed in China. This was quickly picked up by Asians who started to create decks with beautiful, elaborate drawings. Europeans loved this idea, although they did replace some of the cards with royalty. In the early 16th century, the first female was added to this deck, being the Queen in one of the French decks. This was the first time that the 52 card deck was in use, and this is still used in casinos today.
The French also invented roulette in 1842, using just a single zero. This game built Monaco, one of the wealthiest micro-countries in the world. America also adopted this game, but wanted to build the odds in favor of the house a bit more. As a result, a second zero was added. Serious players prefer the original game however, which is far more popular online.
Last but not least, there is baccarat and historians don’t really agree where this came from. Many believe it is a game of French origins, being called Chemin de Fer (railroad) there. 16th century nobility played it regularly and, some 200 years later, it was one of the French Riviera’s most popular games. The Las Vegas Sands casino introduced the game in the 1950s, and it took the country by storm.
Playing in casinos is something that many people have come to love and enjoy. People develop entire strategies in the hopes of being successful and beating the odds of the house. The gambling industry is worth billions of dollars every year, and very few people ever truly win big. But the fact that the chance is there is enough to attract people again and again. After all, someone has to win the big jackpot, which has been known to reach the millions of dollars.
