The History of Poker

Poker is definitely one of the most popular games in the world today. Most people have learned the basics of the game as it is becoming more and more popular on television and online. Let’s take a look at how it all began:

The word “poker” comes from the word “poca”, which means “pocket” in Irish.

The game goes back to the 18th century, and from the beginning it didn’t even consist of card playing at all. It all began on the rivers of Mississippi, where workers on the riverboats passed time playing a game called “Poque”. They started spreading the game all over the country as they travelled along the rivers. The game was about betting on who had the best hand and what hand the other player had.

You can se how the game of “Poque” was an early predecessor to the game of poker. Then the deck consisted of twenty cards but after the gold rush thirty two more cards were added which made it a total of fifty two cards in a deck. Today there is actually still a game called Poque.

It didn’t take long before the game evolved and the Americans invented things like the “wild card” and “lowball”. In the sixties poker had become a normal way of socializing and soon after the popularity of poker started to increase rapidly. The World Series of Poker took off and the best poker players published books about their careers and strategies. Hollywood started releasing movies in the eighties and nineties, where poker either was play or even the main topic of the movie.

It wasn’t until the online gambling started in the late nineties that the popularity of poker really rocketed. Eager poker entrepreneurs took the game online as soon as the Internet was established and that’s were the game stayed. Today, poker is more popular than ever with millions of people from all over the world playing the game against each other online, and offline. It’s very popular in movies to enter the casino world, just take movies like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 21, Oceans Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen for example.

If you think about it poker has even affected our every day language with phrases such as “wild card”, “high roller”, “beats me” and “aces up ones sleeve” being common expressions. There are many aspects of the game that attracts poker players; you get to be social and practice your skills in memory, math, reading people and so on at the same time. Free poker can also be found almost everywhere online.

The game of poker is definitely here to stay; the question is just what will happen next?!

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