The History of Gambling: Tools and Games

Just as gambling evolved from divinatory practices of early societies, so too did the tools of gambling evolve from ritualized objects–stones, sticks, nuts, shells, and bones.  Small bones, particularly knucklebones (astragali) became the direct predecessors of modern dice.  Astragali have irregular, non-symmetrical shapes, with four large sides and two more-or-less rounded ends.  When thrown, an astragalus will land on one of its four big sides, delivering a seemingly random outcome of the throw.  Over time, the sides of an astragalus were given value and markings; the lowest value “1” assigned to the largest side of a concave shape because of a higher chance that the bone will rest on it, the highest value “6” given the smallest side of a convex shape for its greater odds–thus "Roll ‘em bones!"  Read more . . .

The History of Gambling: Ritual Beginnings

The roots of gambling can be traced back thousands of years to religious ceremonies conducted by many pre-historic societies.  Wide-spread cultural evidence indicates that early man created many rituals specifically to foretell the future or explain what was beyond mortal comprehension.  Initially involving the casting of lots–throwing a random handful of small objects such as pebbles, sticks, bones, shells, or nuts–the end results were then counted to ascertain an “odd” or “even” number; even generally equated with a positive outcome, odd a negative one.  Over time this process became more complex, also including the interpretation of the patterns various natural objects made as they appeared in the environment.  Read more . . .