The Origin Of Gambling and Man's Fascniation with Lady Luck
Gambling is a fact of life. Some might say that we gamble with our lives every day with every decision that we make.
Gambling has been around since the beginning of civilization, and their are historical artifacts uncovered to support this. Gambling equipment like die, coins, and other artifacts associated with this activity have been unearthed in sites in Egypt, China, Greece, and India. Gambling has also been mentioned in ancient literature, supporting the fact that this activity indeed has been around for a long, long time.
It is reported that gambling reached such popularity in the Dark Ages that kins prohibited soldier from engaging in the activity, since it distracted them from their training and their duties. Henry VIII of England banned gambling in his army, since he found out that his men were spending their time gambling rather than practicing their drills and marksmanship skills.
Gambling may have prevented the creation of a war between two nations, Norway and Sweden in 1000 AD, when the two were fighting over which country will get the rights to a territory that both were claiming was theirs. King Olaf of Norway and King Olaf of Sweden could not come up with a solution on how to decide which nation will get the district of Hising, an area that both countries claimed as theirs. TO settle this dispute they finally agreed to a die toss.
On the first die toss the two kings both turned up with two sixes. On the second toss the Swedish king rolled two sixes again, Fortunately for the Norwegians their king rolled a six and seven, and so the district of Hising officially became a Norwegian territory.
The Swedish king was a good sport and accepted the outcome of the toss without a fuss, and the two kings parted ways on good terms.
One of the most popular forms of gambling involves playing cards, which probably originated China, since the Chinese were the ones who invented paper.The practice of playing with playing cards was adopted by the Mameluke empire, who created their cards with intricated decorative designs. the idea traveled to the Mediterranean countries. In France they created cards that bore the images of noblemen, kings, and queens. The queen was added sometime in the 1500s. The card deck with the queen, known as the "French pack', is the template that was used to create the modern gaming cards used today.