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Online Casino History – A Brief History of Success

A Brief Account of Initial Days of Online Gambling
Online casino history started in the decade of 1990. In the year 1995, the first ever online casino hit the market and marveled everyone. The name of this internet based casino was Internet Casinos Inc. (in short, ICI). The first ever virtual casino was launched on 18th August 1995. During the initial phase this company started to operate from the islands of Caicos and Turks. Internet Casinos Inc. started its operation outside America because they feared prosecution from the Government of United States of America.

Tell Us Something More About the History of Virtual Betting
What is the total duration of the online casino history? The answer of this question is 10 years. Casinos have always been popular among human world. However, a gambling aficionado has to travel long distances to play and enjoy the fun of gambling. Online casinos have helped these betting lovers to enjoy the games right from their home. Thus, you don’t have to move from one place to another to play the virtual casino games. Some of these characteristic features of virtual casinos make it immensely popular among gambling aficionados.

Is online casino history absolutely smooth? Wasn’t there any hiccup in the entire history of internet based gambling? Yes, there were many hindrances in the entire progress path of internet based casinos. The main hindrance that online gambling industry faces is the legal threat to it. Still now, the main hiccup to online betting of USA is UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act). According to this law, any kind of payments related to online betting is illegal. This law does not make online gambling illegal directly. Consequently, many online casinos have stopped allowing players from America. These are some of the hiccups faced by online gambling industry in the entire online casino history.

Now, Let Us Check The Evolutionary Chronology of Online Casino History

1. In the Year 1994, a new Act was passed by the Government of Antigua-Barbuda, known as ‘The Free Trade and Processing Zone Act, 1994’. Many internet based casinos as well as sports-books have license of the same and this license is considered as one of the most popular licenses among the internet based gambling industry.

2. One of the largest providers of software in online betting is Microgaming. It is a huge software development company, which has mastered the techniques of generating software for online betting sites. This company was founded in the year of 1994. In the following year, that is 1995, another software developing giant called Cryptologic was launched.

3. 1996 has special significance in online casino history. In this year, the first internet based casino site that accepts real money was launched. In the month of October of 1996, InterCasino first launched such a virtual casino that deals with real money.

4. First ever gambling related Act was introduced by a US Congress Senator named Jon Kyl. The year was 1998. The name of this Act was Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. According to this, a company will be regarded as illegal if it offers betting services to any American. This Act was not passed by the US Senate. A revised version of this Act was also placed in the US Senate in the following year, i.e. 1999, but this was also voted down by the Senate. In the same year, a renowned company called Frost and Sullivan published a research report and mentioned in it that online gambling has generated a mammoth amount of revenue of US$ 834.5 million.

5. Internet Gambling Prohibition Act was introduced by a Congress representative, Bob Goodlatte, in the US House of Representatives in the year 2000. However, this Act was also voted down and it failed to acquire the required two-third majority vote. In the year 2000, Cryptologic had published their annual report where it was mentioned that 680,000 customers had used their system of electronic payment already. 2000 was an auspicious year for Cryptologic. It got listed in NASDAQ and received the symbol, CRYP.

6. Year 2004 was specifically important for online gambling. In this year itself, WTO (World Trade Organization) ruled against US regarding legal issues and sided with the Government of Antigua-Barbuda. According to WTO, it is unethical and illegal for American government to restrict online gambling because it allows land based casinos as well as horserace-betting sites to operate in US.

In the same year, Christiansen Capital Advisors has shown figures that 51% of the total revenues from online betting across the world (approximately US$ 8.5 Million) came from United States of America itself.

Thus, we can conclude that online casino history is not bed of roses and is full of ups and downs.

Bingo Games And How They Evolved

Bingo, the popular online game which is a rage all over the world, originated in the fifteenth century as a game played with wooden planks and beans, and it was indeed difficult at that time to visualize the technological revolution which has made online bingo games the high-tech entertainment it is today, being played in millions of homes.

Bingo’s journey from Italy

Bingo originated in the fifteenth century in Italy where it was played as a weekly lottery game. It became massively popular by the end of the fifteenth century and caught up in France. The bingo games had an innate ability to capture people’s attention, and it became a carnival game in Germany, from where it traveled to American, known as Beano.

Bingo came to America as a tent game played in carnivals, and it was known as Beano. Edwin S Lowe, the founder of the modern bingo, saw it being played in 1929 in a carnival in Atlanta. Lowe played the game with his friend and realized it had huge potential to become universally popular.

Pretty soon, bingo spread far and wide in America, and then the bingo games started being played in the UK, Mexico, Asia, Canada and Australia.

Charity game

After its birth when the bingo games were quickly spreading as a family game, a catholic priest in the nineteenth century thought of organizing charity bingo to collect funds for the church.

This experiment was a major success and by 1934, a large part of the church community was organizing charity bingo games, and more then 10,000 weekly bingo games were getting organized.

Bingo halls

Bingo became not only a family game but also a party game and a popular source of entertainment in gatherings, and the growing craze for bingo games, with its social benefits, started attracting businessmen who planned to open special places where bingo games could be played.

Bingo Halls became the big thing; separate areas were demarcated for the bingo players and traditional bingo games with cardboard were played.

Variations

While bingo became more popular, people discovered new variations with different winning patterns and number cards. Different countries started using different bingo games versions; 75 ball bingo gripped America while 90 ball bingo swept through the UK, Australia and Asia.

Online Bingo

The traditional classic board bingo has emerged in its newest and universally popular avatar as online bingo, offering outstanding bonuses to the players and attracting them like magnet.