It used to be that casinos weren’t exactly nice places to visit, and you would only really go there if you were a hardened gambler. In fact, at that time, gambling was still seen as a major sin, and it was looked down on – many casinos were thought of as something to do with the devil, and some even went underground to stop them from being targeted by zealots.
However, as you might know, things have definitely changed. Funnily enough the change happened rather rapidly, and seemingly overnight casinos went from bad places to fun ones – visit www.kingcasino.com. Here’s how it happened.
The History Of The Casino
It all began back in the 1600s in Venice, Italy. This is, so the story goes, when the first casino was built. It’s actually still here, and it’s a gorgeous building, rather grand and imposing. It was created by the Italian government, and it was all part of the famous Venice carnival. Initially, it was meant to be a temporary thing, there to bring in some extra money when the visitors can for the carnival, but it was so popular that the government decided to keep it permanently. And why not? It was making them a lot of money.
Because of this, other casinos started to be built. These were very exclusive places, only for the uber rich, and only for men. So although this was the beginning of things, it was actually rather a slow start and not that many casinos really came into existence. For many, they were still see as places on sin, so building them everywhere would have been a bad idea.
The 19th Century
It took 300 years before casinos really started to take off and become popular. Again, at this time casinos were the province of the upper classes, and the buildings themselves reflected this. Monte Carlo or Biarritz, for example, had some magnificent buildings created just for gambling in, and they were very exclusive.
But they were popular. So what happened was that enterprising individuals decided the lower classes might like a casino too. This is when the seedier side of things began to spring up, with illegal casinos starting to arrive. The poorer parts of society would gamble there, and the difference between the two halves was stark.
America took a long time to catch up to what the rest of the world was doing. It wasn’t as advanced as many other countries, and in the 19th century there were still cowboys and saloon bars and towns that inspired later westerns. But in the 20th century, they definitely made up for what they had been missing. It was Las Vegas, 1941, and the very first casino was built on the strip. Many more followed, and soon enough Las Vegas outshone everyone else if not in class then certainly in number.
New Technology
Not very much happened after this in terms of casinos in general. More and more were built, restrictions were lifted, and people were much freer to go to casinos if they wanted to. The biggest changes came in the form of technology. Online casinos became popular at the end of the 20th century, and now there are thousands of them, all competing for customers.
