Many of today’s familiar casino games have origins that go back centuries. While it’s difficult to identify the exact dates of when many games first appeared, one thing’s for sure: the following casino games are the oldest in the world.

Roulette

Roulette has changed in form over the centuries, but the game has been played since 1796 when it was devised in France. However, the forerunner to the roulette wheel was a perpetual motion machine invented by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century. The earliest description of roulette comes from Jacques Lablee’s novel La Roulette, which describes a roulette wheel at the Palais Royal in Paris. Roulette became a popular game in Parisian casinos thereafter, but it wasn’t until 1843 that a single zero was added to the roulette wheel, by Frenchmen François and Louis Blanc. Today, you’ll find roulette available at every reputable brick-and-mortar and online casino. If you want to play the game online without going to tha casino, check out how to play roulette beforehand so that you understand the rules and nuances of the game. 

Blackjack

The precursor to blackjack was the game twenty-one, which is the name still popularly given to blackjack in the United Kingdom. The origin of the game is unknown, but it is likely to have Spanish roots. The first reference to the card game is in a book by Miguel de Cervantes, who is most famous for writing Don Quixote. In de Cervantes’ book, two men play a card game with the objective of reaching twenty-one points without going over. The story was written in 1601, so it’s likely the game was played in the sixteenth century as well as the seventeenth. When the game made its way overseas to America centuries later, it was renamed blackjack, circa 1899.

Baccarat

Playing cards were around a long time before people started playing twenty-one in the 1600s. Most scholars agree the first playing cards appeared in China, way back in the 9th century. The rules of those ancient card games have been lost to prosperity. But the earliest card game that’s played in casinos today is baccarat. At least, a form of baccarat is the earliest on record. A version of the card game was described as long ago as the 1400s when it was played in Italy and then migrated to France. However, it took hundreds of years for the game to evolve into the modern form of baccarat. It became popular among the French nobility in the 19th century and was commonly played in private gaming rooms before casino gambling was legalized in France in 1907. The earliest form of the game from that period is baccarat banque, which is designed for three players. Chemin de fer later emerged as a two-person version of baccarat banque. Baccarat punto banco, which is one of the most popular versions of baccarat played at casinos today, was developed in Havana in the 1940s.

Craps 

The dice game krabs, which later became crabs and then craps, first became popular in the late 18th century. But it’s based on the English dice game called hazard, which was around centuries earlier. In fact, the game of hazard, which is played with two dice, was mentioned in Chaucer’s classic 14th-century book The Canterbury Tales.

Keno

The modern lottery-style game keno was developed in the mid-19th century when Chinese immigrants headed to the west. But the game’s roots go back much earlier. Chinese lotteries were not documented before 1847, so it’s difficult to gauge exactly when keno’s precursor was first played. But it is known that the concept of keno was invented to fund the building of the Great Wall of China, and construction of the wall began all the way back in 771 BC.

Feeling like playing a round of casino games? Check out Bingofly.co.uk for the top-recommended licensed sites.