What Different Civilizations Played: A History of Gambling from Rome to China

Luck has followed people almost from the start of city life. Wherever markets, festivals, soldiers, merchants and spare time showed up, games of chance showed up too. Some people rolled dice by temple walls. Others bet on races. Others bought lottery tickets hoping for money or a small sign from fate.

Gambling did not grow the same way in every country. Egypt favored board games and dice. Rome bet on public spectacles. China developed early cards and lotteries. In India, play was tied to fate and the will of the gods. Europe later made card games a regular part of city life. Italy then gave the world the first houses that look like modern casinos.

This history of games shows that gambling was never just a pastime. It mirrored how a society was built: belief, trade, law, the taste for risk, even politics.

A rough map of civilizations

Egypt: games and dice

Ancient Egypt is usually remembered for pyramids, pharaohs and mummies, but everyday life is just as interesting. Egyptians knew how to rest, compete and test their luck. Among Egypt’s old gambling games, board games and dice stood out.

The best-known Egyptian board game is senet. Boards turned up in noble tombs, on wall paintings and among burial goods. Senet was not only a pastime. Over time it took on a religious meaning and came to stand for the soul’s journey through the afterlife. In ordinary life, though, people could still argue over the board, put money on the table and see who luck favored.

Another game was mehen. The board looked like a coiled snake, and players moved pieces along the spiral. The full rules did not survive, but the shape of the game already says a lot about how rich Egypt’s play culture was.

Dice held a special place. They were made of wood, stone, animal bone and ivory. Sometimes people used astragali instead of ordinary cubes — small joint bones from animals. They were easy to throw, and the result was almost impossible to guess. That made them a natural fit for gambling in many cultures.

What made Egyptian games a gamble:

• the chance of the throw;
• the chance to place a stake;
• a mix of skill and luck;
• a link to ritual and fortune-telling;
• players from different ranks of society.

The elite could sit at richly decorated boards. Ordinary people used cheaper materials. The idea was the same: a throw, a wait, a risk, and the pleasure of winning.

Egyptians also saw play as more than a way to pass the time. It looked like a model of life. You make a move, but you do not fully control the outcome. That thought would return in many civilizations that tied gambling to fate.

Rome: bets and risk

Romans loved a show. City life was full of noisy forums, triumphs, theaters, gladiator fights, chariot races, games and festivals. Where there is a crowd and a contest, bets appear fast.

In many countries gambling started with a simple question: who will win? In Rome that question was everywhere. Will the gladiator win? Which chariot finishes first? Will the fighter live? What will the dice show?

The most popular forms of Roman gambling:

• bets on chariot races;
• bets on gladiator fights;
• dice games;
• games with astragali;
• board games with pieces;
• private wagers between citizens.

Chariot races in the Circus Maximus drew huge crowds. Teams had colors, supporters, reputations and real fans. People argued, struck bets and backed their drivers with a passion that looks a lot like football crowds today.

Dice were so common that the authorities tried to keep them in check. Roman law banned gambling more than once, especially outside feast days. The bans barely worked. Dice turned up in houses, taverns and army camps. Soldiers, craftsmen and traders played. Sometimes the elite did too.

One popular game was alea. That is where the phrase alea iacta est comes from, usually rendered as “the die is cast.” It became a symbol of a step you cannot take back. You can hear Roman gambling in it: risk, a choice, and living with what follows.

Roman games already hint at something later casino history would make obvious. Long before real casinos existed, people gathered to play, bet and talk. Taverns, private houses, army posts, sometimes hidden rooms.

Rome’s view of gambling was split. On one side, it was a favorite amusement. On the other, too much appetite for bets looked like a threat to morals, family money and public order.

China: dice, cards and lotteries

Chinese civilization gave the world many inventions that changed history. Paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass — everyone knows those. China also matters for the history of games. Early forms of lotteries, dominoes and cards appeared here.

Ancient Chinese gambling games often mixed three things:

• calculation;
• chance;
• the symbolism of numbers.

Dice games were known in China from early times. Cubes were used not only for play, but for divination, ritual and choosing a course of action. Over time, throwing dice became part of games where money could change hands.

Chinese dominoes mattered a great deal. The sets differed from European ones and were closely tied to the combinations of two dice. In a way, dominoes were a method for moving the results of a throw onto tiles.

China is also often linked to the early history of cards. Paper and printing made paper playing pieces possible. The first Chinese cards may have appeared in the Tang or Song period. They were not like modern decks, but the idea was close: a set of signs, combinations, probability, a stake.

Card games whose history begins in Asia later traveled trade routes into the Islamic world and then into Europe. The cards themselves changed a lot. Suits, pictures and rules all shifted. The compact game with symbols proved remarkably hardy.

Chinese lotteries deserve a section of their own. Some researchers tie early lottery forms to state fundraising and the financing of large projects. A popular story says lottery schemes even helped pay for the Great Wall. That claim is hard to prove in full, but the link between the state and the lottery in China really does go back a long way.

Chinese gambling differed from the Roman kind. In Rome people bet on spectacles and strength. In China the taste was more often for combinations, signs, numbers and systems. That does not mean the Chinese played more calmly. Their risk-taking often took the shape of a calculated game with chance.

India: games for money and fate

India is one of the most interesting civilizations if you look at play as a symbol of fate. Gambling turns up not only in archaeology, but in literature, myth and religious texts.

The most famous example is the epic Mahabharata. There a dice game becomes a turning point of enormous scale. King Yudhishthira loses property, a kingdom, his brothers and even his wife Draupadi. The scene is not only a warning about a ruinous passion. It shows how a game can test character, duty, honor and destiny.

Indian games were often tied to dharma, karma and what cannot be avoided. A throw of the dice was not only chance. People could see in it a higher order, or a sign a person had to accept.

Common in India were:

• dice games;
• races and bets on animals;
• board games with pieces;
• counting and movement games;
• contests with money on the line.

India is the source of the old game chaturanga, usually treated as an ancestor of chess. Chaturanga itself was not necessarily a gambling game in the modern sense, but strategic board games often came with stakes. When a game asks for wit and patience, a wager adds heat.

Indian tradition also warned against going too far. Texts caution that play can wreck a family, a fortune and a name. Bans and moral lessons did not kill the habit. It lived on in daily life, at festivals, in royal courts and among ordinary people.

India matters for the wider history of gambling because it shows the habit was not treated only as fun or vice. It was a way to talk about human weakness, free choice and how little of life can be predicted.

Europe: the rise of card games

The European story of cards starts relatively late compared with Egypt, Rome, China and India. Europe is the place that turned cards into a mass pastime that later spread across the world.

Cards probably reached Europe through trade with the East. At first they were expensive, because they were made by hand. They were painted, decorated and produced for the nobility. Printing changed that quickly. Decks got cheaper, and that meant more people could own them.

Card games whose European history took off in the 14th and 15th centuries soon became part of city life. People played at home, in taverns, at fairs and at court. Cards were convenient: a deck took little space, rules could change, and the number of players was flexible.

Different card traditions took shape in Europe:

• Italian decks;
• German suits;
• French suits;
• Spanish decks;
• tarot cards;
• early trick-taking games;
• banking card games.

The French suit system — hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades — later became the international standard. It was easy to print and easy to play. That system sits under many card games still played today.

European authorities treated cards with suspicion. Preachers condemned gambling, city governments banned it, kings tried to keep games under control. Cards kept spreading anyway. They were forbidden, taxed, allowed again, then restricted again.

Why cards won out:

• low cost;
• small size;
• easy to learn;
• many possible rules;
• play for fun or for money;
• the social atmosphere;
• a mix of luck and calculation.

Europe produced games that can be seen as ancestors of poker, baccarat, whist, bridge and other well-known pastimes. Little by little the card table became a sign not only of risk, but of polite society.

Europe also changed the figure of the player. In earlier ages gambling was often tied to ritual or fate. In the early modern period money, strategy, reputation and nerve moved to the front.

Italy: the birth of the first casinos

The history of the casino in the modern sense begins in Italy. The word casino comes from Italian casa, meaning house. At first casino could mean a small house, a villa, a place to rest or a club for meetings. Later the word stuck to gambling.

Venice played a special part. In the 17th century the city was rich, busy, theatrical and commercial. Carnivals drew visitors, the nobility wanted amusement, and money moved freely. Gambling thrived in that air.

In 1638 Venice opened the Ridotto. It is often called one of the first official gaming houses in Europe. The main difference was that play happened under state control. The Venetian Republic did not merely allow gambling. It tried to put it on a managed track.

At the Ridotto people played the popular card games of the day. Biribi and basset were especially well known. The visitors were aristocrats, wealthy travelers and members of the city elite. Formally the house was open, but dress and stakes made it a place for people with money.

Italy’s part in casino history matters for several reasons:

• gambling got an official room;
• the state began to police the game;
• rules of conduct appeared in the house;
• play became part of city luxury;
• the casino joined money, status and entertainment.

Later the idea of gaming houses spread across Europe. France, Germany, Monaco and other regions built their own traditions. Venice stayed the symbol of the first organized casino.

Italy also shows how gambling left private houses and taverns for public space. A player no longer just threw dice in a corner. He walked into a hall, sat at a table, followed the house rules and joined a particular social scene.

Which of these civilizations you can pick in Civilization V

The subject of games across civilizations lines up, almost by accident, with the popular strategy game Civilization V. The game is not a history book on gambling, of course, but it lets you lead peoples who left a mark on world culture, including the history of leisure.

If we talk about Civilization 5 civilizations tied to this article, a player can meet several familiar cultures.

In Civilization V you can pick Egypt, Rome, China and India as separate civilizations. Europe is not one culture; it appears as separate states. Italy as a whole is not a base civilization, but Venice is available in the Brave New World expansion.

That is interesting historically. In real life these civilizations shaped different sides of gambling culture:

• Egypt gave the image of play as ritual and a path;
• Rome built mass betting on spectacles;
• China added cards, lotteries and combinations;
• India tied play to fate and moral choice;
• Europe made cards part of everyday life;
• Venice built an early model of the casino.

A player in Civilization V founds cities, fights wars, develops science and culture. Behind each people there is more than politics and an army. There are habits, festivals, pastimes, leisure and a way of looking at risk. The history of gambling adds a human side to civilizations most players already know.

How attitudes toward gambling changed

Attitudes toward gambling were almost never simple. People liked to play, and societies kept trying to limit the play. Authorities saw taxes in it and, at the same time, a threat to order. Religions condemned the hunger for a win, yet games often lived next to rites and feast days.

A few stages stand out.

In Egypt play could belong to a symbolic world. In Rome gambling became part of noisy city life. In China it grew through numbers, paper, tickets and combinations. In India a game turned into a story about fate and moral choice. In Europe cards became an ordinary object in a townsperson’s hands. In Italy gambling got a room of its own — the casino.

The history of games shows that gambling always sat on the edge of what was allowed. It drew people because it offered a rare jolt of tension. In ordinary life the result often depends on birth, wealth, strength or power. In a game it can feel as if one throw might change everything. That feeling is why dice, cards, bets and lotteries lasted.

Gambling always carried risk as well. A loss could wreck a fortune, split a family, leave a person in debt. Almost every civilization tried to find a balance between amusement and prohibition.

Today historians, archaeologists, cultural scholars and people who study probability look at the gambling games of different peoples. Dice, old boards, cards and lottery tickets help explain more than how people spent their free time. They show how a society thought about fate, money, law, custom and the human taste for risk.

A short wrap-up by civilization

The most popular games of different civilizations looked different on the surface, but they shared one thing: a person wanted a moment of uncertainty. A throw of the dice, a turned card, a bet on a chariot, a lottery ticket — all of them are forms of the same old wish to see whether luck will smile right now.