History of Poker

Poker is unquestionably the most popular casino card game and was voted as the hottest game in 2005. Since the birth of televised poker tournaments, world-class contests and the explosion of poker in the online casino world, poker’s future has never looks so bright. But this exciting vying game has a very rich history and colorful past which is worth exploring…

Poker has its roots spread around a number of vying games from the late Middle Ages:

Pochen – a 15th century German game which used a unique staking board and consisted of three phases: payment for being dealt the best card, vying about which player has the best combination and playing the cards out. A French version of the game, Poque, was a three-part game using a 32-card deck for up to six players.
As-nas – a five-card vying game originating from Persia was brought to France in the 1700s with Persian sailors. This game had similarities to poker which included combinations of pairs, threes and two pairs, betting rounds and hierarchical hand rankings.
Brag – a three-card vying game of English origin which included rounds of betting. Edmond Hoyle went as far as writing a treatise on the game which was published in 1751.
Primero – a game using a full pack of 52 cards which originated in Spain and Italy, and which has similar betting options as modern day poker.

Brag, which is the main originator of poker, reached American shores in the late colonial period and was played in the Southern plantation colonies. The first official description of the game was recorded in “The New Pocket Hoyle” in 1805. The game continued to remain true to its roots but developed and evolved into an independent game until the late 19th century.

The fame of poker spread around America through the Mississippi river boats, on which gambling was an extremely popular pastime. Poker’s was first officially mentioned by Jonathan H. Green when he mentioned ‘the cheating game’ in his book “An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling” in 1834. As Green described the game, it included twenty cards using only Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and Tens. The game was between two to four people, with each receiving five cards.

Once it hit the land, poker spread like wildfire to the ‘Wild West’. No self-respecting saloon would be found without a poker table and the game was played in every western town. During this time period, poker underwent a number of adaptations and the game matured and branched out. Concepts such as stud poker, draw poker and whiskey poker were all developed in the west.

At the beginning of the 1900s, community card poker was born in the United States. During the 1920s, the two most popular versions of this form of poker developed – Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hold’em. Community card poker involved the dealer handing out an incomplete hand to the players and some face-up cards in the middle (community cards) with which every player can make up a complete hand.

Tournament poker took the game’s status to new heights when it started in the 1970s. The World Series of Poker was the brainchild of Benny Binion who owned a series of casinos around Las Vegas and the first contest was held at the Binion Horseshoe casino in 1970. This poker tournament and others like the World Poker Tour have turned poker into a highly prestigious sport, with the winners becoming legends in their own rights. Televised poker tournaments in the late 1990s also marked an important stage in poker’s history, turning the game into a spectator’s sport. Poker tournaments were broadcasted on sports channels around the world and poker players developed into stars. With sponsorship deals and the creation of poker celebrities, poker became a truly globalized sport.

The online casino industry facilitated the even greater spread of poker than the satellite-broadcasted tournaments had. Poker is by far the most popular online casino game and there are hundreds of sites dedicated to the dozens of variations of poker, alone. Video poker is also a great game in the online form, combining the game of poker with the thrill of slots.

An entire sub-culture has been created in the online poker world, creating countless remote poker rooms where players ‘meet’ and play against each other 24/7. An entire socialization process takes place in remote poker rooms, with players having an ID, the ability to chat to one another and the option to view other players’ playing history. Some people have even met and gotten married because of remote poker rooms!

Online poker sites have also been very involved in the poker tournaments and there is now a very fine line between these two entities. Many of the recent winners of these prestigious tournaments had qualified through an online entrance contest and the organizers of the tournaments work very closely with online casinos. A new chapter in the history of poker is being written every day with the billions of people who play poker online.