Poker today is a global pastime, played by millions worldwide, and every second of every day, someone somewhere across the globe is playing a hand of poker. So how did this apparently simple game of cards develop into the multi-faceted big business industry we know today?
Card games have been a popular pastime for many hundreds of years. The Egyptians used to play forms of cards going back to the 12th Century and even earlier than this, the Chinese are said to have enjoyed playing “domino cards” as far back as the 10th Century.
Early Card Games
The roots of the game of poker we know today are slightly shrouded in controversy, with some historians ascribing its origins to a game called “As Nas” which involved rounds of betting and hierarchical hand rankings similar to poker - played in Persia in the 16th Century.
A popular theory claims the French card game known as “poque”(*) is the direct descendant of poker, with French colonials in Canada bringing the game to North America in the 18th Century. Championed by these Gallic settlers, the appeal of poker began its genesis across the Atlantic, its spread facilitated in the United States by the French-Canadian founders of New Orleans.
Poker Spreads throughout America
First played in the floating saloons on the Mississippi river, the game quickly moved up the Mississippi out of the state of Louisiana, snowballing in popularity, until by the mid to late nineteenth century, virtually every town in the US had a saloon hosting a local poker game.
During the American civil war, many new variants of poker sprung up, such as 7 card Stud, 5 card draw, Omaha and Pai Gow, amongst numerous other wildcard and lowball variations.
Whilst America had begun its national love affair for the game, two key moments in history provided the catalyst for the game to become a global phenomenon.
Key Moments in Poker History
The first was the introduction of the World Series of Poker by Benny Binion in 1970, hosted at “The Horseshoe Casino” in Las Vegas, Nevada. Devised to bring the greatest exponents of the game together, and provide healthy advertising for “The Horseshoe”, the WSOP grew into a series of tournaments in various variants of the game, eventually culminating in a $10,000 Main Event, where the game played is “No Limit Texas Hold’em.”
The WSOP has grown in size and stature over the years, and is now a 2 month festival with nearly 60 tournaments, where each winner walks off with a much-prized WSOP bracelet.
The other factor to heavily influence the growth of poker was the foundation of the internet. The internet provided an platform for anyone in the world to play anytime and the face of poker has snowballed from a few early pioneering companies offering poker into the multi-billion pound poker industry we see today.
Whilst there are some grey clouds afflicting the poker world at the moment, its universal popularity and continuing growth suggests the future is bright for this historic game.
(* The word “poque” is believed to have been derived from the German “Pochen” meaning “to brag as a bluff.”)