The Most Insane Facts About Casinos and Gambling You Might Not Know

The Most Insane Facts About Casinos and Gambling You Might Not Know

Gambling is full of facts, myths, mysteries, famous persona and has an incredibly long rich and interesting history. Casino - a word which is originated from the Italian "casa," the meaning of which is 'small villa' or 'summerhouse' – anyway, the place for pleasure and entertainment, has much to say.

In fact, there are so many facts about casinos and gambling that you might not know apart from this one, and even if you are a gambler or at least interested in casinos, some of them may still seem rather weird to you. Here we go with the most insane facts about casinos and gambling that you might have no idea of or never thought of, for sure.

Today, the word 'casino' defines all gambling establishments providing visitors with a specific selection of casino games, either land based or online, and paying taxes to the state treasury. The usual choice of casino games is slot machines, roulette, some card games, dice games and certain types of lotteries.

However, there are also non-traditional casino games, invented in these casinos or mutated from the classic ones. The most popular games in the casino still are considered roulette, poker and "Black Jack". All that is quite common. However, not all of us mind that the biggest money is most convenient to do on human passions and weaknesses.

Passion for the game, depending on the strength is comparable to a drug addiction or alcoholism. And some of these ancient human vices, are difficult to understand since people drank and used drugs since ancient times, just like gambled.

Casino History Facts

The first gambling houses appeared among the ancient Romans and Greeks, and the first casino, which supplemented actual state treasury was French, opened in Paris in the sixties of the seventeenth century. Though, playing at home have been known in Europe since the XII century, it was short-lived and the forbidden one.

The word "casino" is often associated with luxury, wealth, gloss, etc. So, it really so: the casino owners of that time spared their money on something to show their respectability to the customers and create the illusion of their immersion in another world. It emphasizes the fact that the casino is exactly "a home", a place where you can come and relax and feel as comfortable as possible.

However, the primary casino first made ever is said to be built in the Italian city Venice, in 1638. Obviously because the origins of the word casino itself is Italian. Such buildings were also used to offer civic town functions like music, dancing, and... gambling.

Casino design

Interior design of different casino is different, but all of them are built according to certain distinctive laws based on knowledge of human psychology:

  • There are no clocks and windows in casinos. This serves to create an internal comfort and a feeling of isolation from the outside world of everyday life. No need to keep track of time where there are real estate, cars and other reputable prizes on stake which are an extra bonus to the overall probability of winning or a trick of the casino to make money and leave you with nothing. Either this or that.
  • Basically anything will do to keep you from leaving the casino.
  • The house always has an advantage.and to live the casino according to the usual schedule. Secondly, to plunge into the world of gambling games takes time differently with each person. And a few hours may seem a matter of minutes. The longer a customer stays in the game, the higher the potential chance of losing.
  • Meal places and bathrooms are found realy deep into the gambling labyrinths. Regardless of the fact that you pop into a casino on the strip to use the restroom or meet a companion for supper, you'll see that you need a guide to get there.
  • The very layout of gaming halls is carried out according to the rule: "the smaller the line passes, the more walls, partitions, stairs and other obstacles on the way out, the better." An owner of any prudent "way out" will place the maximum number of "traps" for the player on his or her way, not to end up going out or fight back, and keep them tempting the fate, so they will find themselves caught like Alice in Wonderland falling deeper into the rabbit hole.
  • The lighting in any clubhouse is made to look like your family room, making you more quiet and comfortable.
  • If you google any layout of any major functioning casino, you’ll see they all are set up in a form of giant mazes to get you lost intentionally and keep you playing.
  • Remember the atmosphere of a Las Vegas casino visited by a junk Hunter Thompson played by Jonny Depp in Fear and Loathing...? Well, casinos always strive to create a holiday atmosphere. Animation programs, shows, striptease, comps, popular artists speeches, musical performances or special guest stars, all that creates an illusion of a better different life and never ending success, excitement and dynamics.
  • Free casino services: free bar with drinks, alcohol, snacks and other comps, free taxi or a hotel room, free entrance on birthdays are rather complex ways of manipulation and in each particular casino are implemented differently. Control of comps distributions: publicly available tea, coffee, juices, mineral water, champagne, cheap vodka, is always based on the human vices and psychology.
  • The majority of casinos in the USA will defiitely serve you free drinks on the ground floor to keep their gamblers recless, sloppy in order to induce poor decisions at games.
  • Popular membership or club cards. Loyal customers get access to the free service, while casual visitors have to pay more.
  • Free shows and meals to keep you in the hell interior of the casino is another tactic.
  • Such events have a positive impact on the reputation of the casino and attract more customers. Typically, the player will go to where the probability of winning is higher and where there are real estate, cars and other reputable prizes on stake which are an extra bonus to the overall probability of winning or a trick of the casino to make money and leave you with nothing. Either this or that.
  • Basically anything will do to keep you from leaving the casino.
  • The house always has an advantage.

Famous persona and casinos

Apart from the historical data and generally known evidences on how the casino is designed and served and why, there are several more interesting facts about gambling you might now know:

  • Nero, the Roman Emperor was not allowed to be disturbed during the game, even in the case of a fire in Rome.
  • English King Henry VIII managed to lose the famous "Jesus Bell" - the bell of St. Paul's Cathedral. And when the winner, Sir Miles Partridge, wanted to take the win, Henry VIII, no hesitation, hung him.
  • England didn't always was friendly towards casinos and gambling. During the 18th century, English casinos hired people to swallow the dice in case of a police raid, actually.
  • In 1865 Dostoevsky was forced to escape abroad, having 3000 rubles in his pocket. The writer went straight to Bad Homburg, where he lost everything at the roulette table. This true story inspired him to write his world-famous novel The Gambler.
  • There was only one case in Monte Carlo history, when the casino had to return the amount of the lost. The captain of a warship, who lost at roulette all the ship's coffers, put the ship directly in front of the casino and pointed all the barrels of guns in its direction. This proved to be a powerful argument, and the manager returned the sum.
  • General Blucher lost one million marks in Baden-Baden, in 1814.
  • Monaco citizens are forbidden to enter the gaming rooms in local casinos. This restriction was established by Charles III, the Prince of Monaco from 1856 to 1889.
  • Peter O'Brien was lucky enough to win 3 million in "Black Jack".
  • Black Jack is one of the favorite games of skill among the majority of today's players, but the French Emperor also had a special interest to this game. It was the game of Blackjack that Napoleon Bonaparte spent some of his exile on Elba at.
  • Charles Fey, who was a car mechanic, invented slots in 1887 simply because he wanted to improve the customer services and entertain his clients while their having the car repaired.
  • Andre Citroen, the founder of the Citroen group managed to lose 13 million francs in 1926 in Deauville.
  • If you calculate all the roulette table numbers from 1 to 36, you get the number 666, which is most often associated with the devil. That's why roulette is also called ‘The Devil’s Game’.

Casino Gambling Facts

Modern casino games like roulette, blackjack, baccarat, slots and many other classic gambling games are also full of incredible facts, secrets and other insane things you should definitely know.

Roulette

Roulette is admitted to be the oldest casino game.

Roulette invention belongs to a French mathematician Blaise Pascal, 1655 (originates from the French word "roulette" the wheel).

However, in the XVIII century a casino game "Hoku" was introduced in France. It was a prototype of the modern game of roulette. The game brought profit. It consisted of 40 nests, three were labeled with the Zero, and when the ball fell into one of them, the casino took away all bets. Later, to attract the players, casino reduced the number of green cells. Roulette the way we know it appeared in Paris only in 1765.

If a bet is placed on a specific number (line rate), and it falls, the winning amount will be 35 times higher than the amount bet!

Zero does not belong to any group of numbers and bets are made as a single number. However, the probability of getting a specific number from 1 to 37 is just 2.7%.

In Japan, the customers can top up their budgets in ATM, making payment transactions. After completing the operation on the ATM, a roulette wheel appears on the screen, and in the case of winning, 1000 yen is offered.

The sum of the numbers on the roulette wheel is equal to 666. Mysterious, right?

Craps

Its history begins in the XIX century. The homeland is considered to be New Orleans, where it was invented the American negros.

An interesting fact about the dice is that in ancient times they were made of animal bones.

For the first time cubical dice with different labels at the ends appeared in ancient Greece. The Greeks were also the first to use other materials for the production of dice.

Just like it, the play of Sic-Bo was born in China and is popular mainly in Asia.

Modern casinos present Sic-Bo game as a craps game variation.

In craps, you play with two dice, in sic-bo with three.

An unknown sailor managed to make 27 winning throws with the dice at the craps table. In order to understand this unbelievable achievement better, mind that the odds against are 12,467,890. Today those dice are displayed on a velvet pillow under glass in the hotel he played.

Slots

The mechanics of the process is very simple: when the weight of the coins in the machine exceeds a certain limit, it opens the gates and coins are poured into the tray.

One of the biggest wins in slot machines is nearly 39 million dollars. This jackpot was won by an American programmer, who came to watch basketball and casually decided to play on the slot machine.

In Japan, the slots with cash prizes are banned. Slot machines give out prizes not in coins, but in toys, cigarettes, chewing gums and other things.

One of the greatest big stakes in slots was also won in 1998 when a lady won 27.6 million dollars in Las Vegas.

Card Games

As the matter of fact, the belief is that the card games started in France and the card deck itself: 4 suits for playing - spades, diamonds, hearts, and clubs, are derived from first French card decks that depicted the 4 classes of society: the spades - the nobles; the diamonds - dealers; hearts - members of the clergy; clubs — the peasants. Other explanations claim that each suit is represented by a different historical persona: Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, King David and Alexander the Great. Choose the explanation you like the most, whatever it is.

Baccarat

Baccarat translated from the Italian word means "zero", and the origin of the game is often attributed to the Italians mainly.

Tarot deck was originally used for baccarat. Only the upper strata of aristocratic society played in baccarat in the Middle Ages.

According to legend, the game came on the basis of Etruscan religious ritual worship of the nine gods, in which an important role was played by dice to determine the fate of virgins. If the numbers 8 or 9 dropped they became priestess, if 6 or 7, the girls were forbidden to participate in any religious rites. If the figure was less than 6, the virgins were drowned in the sea.

BlackJack

Italians and French still argue about who invented blackjack.

The greatest mistake the players always make is that they strive to get a number as close to 21 as possible, while the real sense of the game is simply to beat the dealer. For many the goal should be to score more points than the dealer, but not more than 21 in total.

The player plays against the dealer, regardless of the number of players at the same table with him, and the outcome of the game for one player does not affect his neighbor's cards.

BlackJack originated in France from the French game "chemin de fer" at the end of the XVII century. The name of the game came from the previous version of the rules, in which the player, who had at the hands a combination of ace of spades and a jack, paid an additional fee.

Poker

The ultimate potential to make Royal Flush in poker is 1 in 649,740.

The first mention of the game refers to 1526.

Now poker is one of the most popular casino games.

This is the only game where the gamers are playing against each other, but not the dealer.

However, depending on differences in the rules, poker can be held either against the dealer or against other players: the so-called club poker.

It is often referred to sports rather than gambling.

More Insane Facts

  • Kellin Brewer, a housewife from New York, won $ 10 million in the casino.
  • A resident of Ireland won 115 million euro in "EuroMillions"lottery , and suddenly got into the list of the wealthiest people in the country.
  • In 1979, the Seminole Indian tribe opened a bingo hall at the reservation, ignoring the ban on gambling valid in Florida. The authorities tried to close the institution, but the Indians refused to obey. They argued that the reservation was a sovereign territory of their tribe, and therefore the laws of Florida didn't work there. The case went to court, which lasted several years and ended in 1987 after the victory of the Indians.
  • Only 9 % of California’s Native Americans, however, benefit from casinos now.
  • During the first 15 years that Atlantic City had casinos, there was a raising of violent crime by 199 percent and the larceny skyrocketed up to 481 percent!
  • Eventually, about two-thirds of gambling addicts turn to crimes in order to finance their own deadly habits.
  • Even if casinos claim to specialize in games that produce immense wins like progressive slots or black jack but ultimately take your money in the long run, nothing more, nothing less.
  • 87 percent of the individuals who dwell in Las Vegas somehow relate to gambling.
  • Gambling clubs intentionally put sparkling lights all over not to attract your attention, but rather to persuade that everybody is winning money when they are not, in fact.
  • Keno was developed in China somewhere around 205 and 187 BC.
  • The Great Wall of China was worked out due to a substantial money contribution from Keno profits.
  • Australians are the most gambling nation of the world!
  • The Catholic and Judaic religions have both endured and bolstered betting before.
  • The most insane is that betting has been around since the beginning of the world. The initially recorded taxes and betting regulation showed up in fourth century BC!

Online Gambling

  • The biggest online casino win of almost 18 million euros was won by a lucky resident of Helsinki in the PAF Casino, the lucky winner's name was not disclosed.
  • Cyprus residents of online casinos spend about 2.5 billion euros annually in online casinos, if counted per each inhabitant: it goes for 3000 euros per year.
  • Slot machines and lotteries online are most popular in online casinos, though most of the players are confident that these are actually poker and roulette.

According to statistics, 13% or fewer people regularly visit casinos, while the majority prefer the same games on the Internet. It is noteworthy, but about 77% of the players are not experts, they are most often engaged into the gambling just for fun, about 65% train memory with the help of online entertainment, for 36%, the game machines are just a hobby, and about 20% of people make new acquaintances in such a way.

Add some more insane casino and gambling facts no one knows of your own, comment on the facts you might not know but are aware of now and do not forget to share the info with your friends. Good luck, you guys!

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