How Gambling Conquered Europe
Although there is little written about gambling from the fifth through the ninth century, it is known that the Germanic hordes who brought down the Roman Empire played dice; the losers became the slaves of the winners.
During the first Holy Crusades, gambling became so prevalent that Richard the Lion-Heart and King Philip of France decreed that any soldiers beneath the rank of knight could not gamble.
The exceptions were clerics, knights, and servants of the kings; however, they could not lose more than twenty shillings during the course of the day.
The punishment for disobeying the law was severe; those who did so were stripped naked and publicly whipped for a period of three days.
The two kings, of course, could gamble whenever and for whatever stakes they chose.
Hazard, the forerunner of craps, was invented during the Crusades by English soldiers who held the Arabian castle called Hazart under siege. Variations were made to the game throughout the next seven hundred years.
The name craps is derived from the name given to a throw of two aces in hazard, craps.
The roots of Faro, a very popular game in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth century, lie in the German game Landsquenet, a game played by German soldiers around 1400.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, or Pharaoh, was extremely fashionable in Paris. The ph spelling was used because the backs of the French cards had a picture of an Egyptian king on them.
The game was banned by Louis XIV but later regained favor under the rule of the Duke of Orleans who controlled the throne after the death of Louis XIV in 1715. Faro was probably introduced in England by noblemen who shared the exile of Charles II in France.
It became a favorite diversion of the ladies and gentlemen of Charles II's court and was often played for extraordinarily high stakes. Faro was ultimately prohibited by an Act of Parliament in 1738.
Other games popular in Europe and England after the Middle Ages were Roulette, Vingt-et-un, Loo, All-Fours, Lotto, Casino, Monet, and several forerunners of poker.
Roulette originated in Europe but became a favorite of the French people, and is still one of the best-known games in gambling casinos.
The game changed from its original version of three zeros on the wheel to a wheel with one and sometimes two zeros. The odds are heavily with the house.
From the evolution of gambling to the seemingly 'harmless, low-profile' card games, there are a lot of rules and regulations and events that have shaped the development of gaming in Europe.