As humans, we have always had a certain draw towards gambling, whether it has been working out who would win in a game or who would rank in which position in a race. There are examples of serious betting taking place as early as the Roman times but they certainly are not the only ones to have been intrigued by betting, gambling and the casino Kings.
The First Casino
It was not until 1638 when the first specifically built casino was built. This needed plenty of legalities surrounding it but it enabled a safe space for people to meet in and be able to play particular games. The very first ever casino to have been recorded was known as the Casino Di Venezia, and unsurprisingly, was opened in Venice. The aim of this hall was to prevent any problems from occurring when the Venetians wanted to gamble, especially during busy times of the year from Venice, like the Carnival Season. Though the Casino De Venezia is not as well-known as many other casinos today, it is still standing many hundreds of years later and can be visited on your next trip to Venice.
Casinos As We Know Them
The palatial looking buildings that we have come to associate with casinos and gambling today have not always been the stereotypical type of buildings that would be have been used. It was not until the late 18th and into the 19th centuries that casinos started to be specifically built for no other purpose other than to gamble. Germany and France saw impressive structures built solely for this purpose, with huge amounts of money sunk into creating some of the most extravagant and beautiful casinos that the world has ever seen. To this day, these are still some of the best-known casinos in the world, with Monte Carlo being the home of some of the biggest casino lovers around.
When Did Casinos Reach Las Vegas?
The casinos in Las Vegas as relatively new in comparison to their rivals in other parts of the world. Vegas and many other parts of the US did participate in gambling and other well-known casino based activities, but they rarely featured in anywhere as salubrious as a European style casino. Instead, the original style of American casinos was actually just gambling in saloon bars, where the casino element was actually the secondary function of the building, with drinking or socialising being the paramount function.
Viva Las Vegas
In 1905 when a group of workers were spending years of their lives laying train tracks in order for the Pacific Coast to be connected to Vegas like never before, there was little for these workers to do outside of working hours. There was a great deal of gambling, prostitution and drinking occurring and the State of Nevada had to interfere quickly before it all got out of hand. Though gambling was banned from 1910 until 1931, illegal casinos appeared in every possible area, but after this time it did become legal to gamble here. Then in 1941, El Rancho Vegas, the first casino resort appeared and Vegas has never looked back since.
