Welcome to the Arabic Casino blog. Here you will learn something that you maybe didn’t know about the history of online gambling and online casinos. So, just scroll down the page and travel through the time with us.
Online Gambling and Casinos
Do we all know what online gambling and online casinos are? Online gambling is any kind of gambling on the internet, everything that is virtual. This includes casinos, virtual poker, and sports betting. And online casinos are the online version of traditional casinos. Easy right? But the main question here is what is the history of these two things? How, where, when all started and what did that look like? Well stay here with us and you will find out.
The Beginning of Online Gambling and Casinos
Everything started in the middle of the 90s. The first internet gambling sites went live. But, no one was interested in paying the taxes. That’s why the gambling websites started their legal operations in the islands which had the free trade and processing act, Barbuda and Antigua. This opportunity gave the Caribbean nation the right to grant licenses to businesses interested in starting online casinos.
At least once, every gambler has heard about Microgaming. We all know that today this software provider is one of the giants in online gambling. But, was it like this in the 90s? Well, it was. Microgaming was first coming to prominence. In the history of online gambling, Microgaming has become known as one of the leading lights and a company that’s virtually revolutionized gambling online.
By the end of 1996, there were about 15 internet gambling sites in operation. By the end of 1997, there were more than 200 online casinos, poker sites, and sportsbooks available all over the world with annual revenues approaching $1 billion.
The Rise of Sports Betting
Now, we have to mention sports betting and how did it arise and become so much popular. Today it is so unreal to imagine gambling without sports betting. Well, we should thank the InterTops.
In 1996 InterTops became the first platform to offer a new way for its fans to wager on their favorite teams. The initial success of InterTops was followed by fast expansion and after only two years some of the world’s top bookmakers, like William Hill and Ladbrokes, had opened their gambling sites. And just a few years later Betfair revolutionized the industry by suggesting a new format of P2P betting.
Betfair is an internet gambling site that took sports betting to a whole new level thanks to the invention of peer-to-peer wagering. It means that is allowed for players to make bets between themselves while the site from each wager took a commission.
As time passed by, and how internet technology had been improving, live sports betting has proven to be very popular among gamblers and one of the most exciting new sports wagering options on the market today.
Online Poker and its history
We know that online poker is one of the most played online casino games. But how did this game show up on the internet? Well, all thanks to the Planet poker.
Planet Poker is considered the first online gambling site to offer poker. This platform quickly attracted a large number of players. Unfortunately, this platform was plagued by a lot of technical problems, but the fall of Planet Poker led to the rise of other poker sites such as Paradise Poker, partypoker, and, PokerStars.
Paradise Poker was launched in 1999, and Partypoker and Poker Stars were formed two years after Paradise Poker. But, thanks to the Poker Star and its online tournament satellites, poker became popular all around the world.
Then and Now
Here we would like to show you what exactly changed over the last 20 years of online gambling and online casinos. Just to be aware of the growth in online casinos and gamblings.
- Back then the offered bonuses were much better in attracting players interested.
- 20 years ago verification was limited by confirmation players’ email addresses.
- It was common for games to freeze or for some glitch to impair the website.
- In-play betting was out of the question.
Summary
In the end, we could say that online gambling and online casinos have developed hand in hand with the development of technology and the Internet. They had their ups and downs, but what is most important now is that their popularity is flourishing day by day, as well as the growing number of their players. We have seen what has happened and changed in just two decades, but can you imagine what will happen in the future?
