1852
- October 2
- Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte of Canino ends a week's gambling at the Kursaal casino, ahead by 560,000 francs. [187.210]
1853
-
- British Parliament bans off-track horse-racing bets. [187.180]
1856
- April 26
- Prince Florestan I of Monaco grants Napoléon Langlois and Albert Aubert a concession to build and run a bathing establishment and casino. [187.299]
- December 14
- In Monaco, Villa Bellevue opens for gambling, a temporary site while the main hotel/casino is being built. [187.299]
1857
-
- Public gaming is made illegal in France. [80.291]
- Napoléon Langlois and Albert Aubert sell their Monaco casino concession to Pierre Auguste Daval. [187.299]
1858
-
- Monte Carlo opens in Monaco, by gambling operators forced from Hamburg. [39]
1860
-
- In California, all banking games (where player bets against the house) are banned. [39] [187.262]
- September 12
- Spaniard Thomas Garcia leaves the Kursaal casino with nearly 800,000 francs of the casino's reserve capital. [187.211]
1861
-
- Nevada sets a law against running or playing a game of chance. [187.351]
1863
- March
- François Blanc buys the Monaco casino resort concession for 1.5 million francs, valid until April 1, 1913. [187.300]
- September 27
- The united kingdom of Italy is proclaimed. The Lotto is made a legal source of national income. [80.235] [187.87]
1865
-
- Frenchman Pierre Oller creates a mathematical system for pooling bets and paying off winners, in proportion to the amount of money in the pool. [187.236]
- Nevada passes a law against running a game of chance. [187.351]
1866
-
- Louisiana passes a law requiring all lottery brokers to register with the state and pay 5 percent tax of profits. [187.342]
1868
- February
- Prussian Chamber passes law ordering all gambling stopped effective 11:00 PM, December 31, 1872. [187.213]
- (month unknown)
- The Louisiana Lottery Company (a criminal syndicate from New York) is authorized by the state and granted an exclusive 25-year charter. [39] [187.342]
1869
-
- Gambling is legalized in Nevada, with minimum age 17. A quarterly license fee is imposed on Storey County, set at US$250 in other counties. [39] [187.352]
- Louisiana allows an unlimited number of gambling houses to operate in New Orleans, for US$5,000 per year fee. [187.343]
1871
- October 8
- Great Chicago Fire kills 200, destroys over 4 square miles (10 square km) of Chicago buildings, and original Emancipation Proclamation. (In 1944, the estate of Louis Cohn releases a letter claiming he knocked over a lantern in a barn while playing craps with friends.) [1] [80.147] [187.283]
1872
-
- French chemist Pierre Oller devises pari-mutuel system of pooling betting stakes for equitable distribution among winners. [80.191]
- October
- Gambling centers in Ems and Wiesbaden, Germany, close by order of the Prussian government. [80.296] [187.213]
- December 31
- The casinos of Homburg, Germany, operate for the last time, shutting down on order of the Prussian government. [80.295] [187.199,213]
1873
-
- Joseph Jaggers of England wins 80,000 pounds at roulette at the Monte Carlo casino after a few weeks play, by exploiting subtle imperfections in the wheels that bias certain numbers. [187.313]
1875
-
- Nevada raises the legal gambling age to 21, sets the quarterly licensing fee to US$400 in all counties, outlaws three-card monte, and makes cheating a felony. [187.352]
1876
- August 2
- In Deadwood, South Dakota, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok is shot dead (from behind) by Jack McCall while playing poker, for no known reason. He reportedly held a pair of Aces and a pair of 8s. [1] [187.264]
1877
-
- The first pari-mutuel betting in American horse-racing takes place at Morris and Jerome Park in New York. [86.164]
- Sports gambling scandal in USA: four Louisville Grays baseball players are found to have taken money from New York gambling ring to deliberately lose games. [187.338]
1878
-
- Pari-mutuel betting on horse-racing is introduced to Churchill Downs in Kentucky. [86.164]
1879
-
- In New Zealand, Ekberg invents the first mechanical totalizer, a hand-operated calculating machine for use in pari-mutuel betting system for horse racing. [187.236] (1880 [80.191])
1880
- April 24
- A bomb explodes in the Monte Carlo casino; many are wounded by glass, but no serious theft is carried out. [187.304]
1881
-
- In New South Wales, George Adams begins offering a public sweepstakes. [187.233]
- In New Zealand, the Gaming and Lotteries Act passes, banning gaming houses, off-track totalizer betting, and most lotteries. [187.235,237]
- Missouri bans gambling. [187.263]
1885
-
- Gambling is outlawed in California. [187.263]
1887
- May 26
- Racetrack betting becomes legal in New York state. [1]
1889
-
- Great Britain outlaws gambling in areas of Africa under its control, except horse racing book making. [187.464]
1890
-
- US Congress passes a law outlawing delivery of lottery materials by the mail. [187.344]
1891
-
- A company in Brooklyn, New York, sells the first poker-playing slot machines. [187.330]
1892
-
- Hong Kong governor Sir William Robinson orders a halt to betting on horse races. [187.218]
- New South Wales criminalizes sweepstakes gambling. [187.233]
- Canada's Criminal Code makes all gambling illegal, except raffles for charity or religious organizations, carnival games of chance at agricultural fairs, and racetrack betting. [187.240,461]
1895
-
- In the USA, the Louisiana Lottery Company is abolished. Over 30 years, the private lottery took in US$300 million, paying out little. [39] [40.13] [187.344]
- Charles Fey, American mechanic, invents the first slot machine, called Liberty Bell, first used in a San Francisco gambling saloon. The machine employs three spinning reels, and costs 5-cents to operate. A window displays the selected symbol of each reel, and there are ten symbols on each reel. [39] [80.70] (1887 [87.203]) (1899 [187.331])
- US law bans interstate transportation of lottery materials. [187.344]
1896
- January 25
- Birth of John Moores British gambling magnate/multi-millionaire. [1]
- (month unknown)
- Tasmania passes the Suppression of Public Betting and Gaming Act, legalizing a government-sponsored lottery monopoly, Tattersalls, run by George Adams. [187.233]
1897
-
- The Swedish government starts a state lottery. [80.241]
1898
-
- In San Francisco, California, Charles Fey builds a slot machine with three reels called Card Bell, the first poker machine paying out in coins. [187.331]
|
