I’m
from Las Vegas. You might not have heard, but gambling is kind of a big deal
there. It is, indirectly, the reason my father is employed. It is basically the
reason all other industry exists in my hometown. It generated a significant
part of the funding for my public-school education. It’s an activity that I
have never participated in (and don’t plan on participating in any time soon),
but it has nonetheless been a huge part of my life. The sound of slot machines
is just a part of home.
However,
gambling existed a long time before Las Vegas had neon lights, a long time
before the mob took over, a long time before the first wagons of Mormons
arrived in the Las Vegas Valley. (Did you know that Las Vegas was first founded
by Mormons? It was.) Gambling is an ancient human tradition, an ancient and
continued form of entertainment that has been present in every age and
geographic region.
Blackjack,
the most widely played casino game in the world, was first mentioned in the
writings of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote (although Don
Quixote is not the work in which blackjack is mentioned). The idea of
blackjack is to reach 21 points without going over, and it came from an earlier
game called “twenty-one.” This short story dates back to between 1601 and 1602,
which would imply that the game itself had been in the Iberian Peninsula since
before the beginning of the 17th Century.
Another
popular casino game is called craps. It doesn’t take much by way of equipment,
so it is also easy to play in informal settings or on corners—the reason you
may sometimes hear it called
“street craps.” “Shooting dice” is the same thing. It was developed from an old
English game called, hazard, which had some very complicated rules and was mentioned
in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,
which were written at the end of the 14th century. Its origins date
back as far as the Crusades, and it was heavily influenced by the French. It
was brought to America by Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, a
wealthy Louisiana landowner.
I
thought it was interesting to learn about how difficult it is to identify just
where or how these games were invented and became popular, because no one wrote
about them until they were mentioned in literature, presumably because it was a
popular enough pastime that readers would understand it and be able to place
the work within a cultural setting. The knowledge itself, about how to play,
the rules of the game, etc. was passed down from gambler to gambler. That is so
different from today’s regulatory system, with state laws dictating the
legality of gambling and gaming boards or commissions in place to control and
oversee gambling activities. I think that the widely recognized illicit nature
of gambling (almost every major religion forbids or at least frowns upon it)
probably contributed to the feel of it as back-alley knowledge.
Because
it is such a part of the unique personality of Las Vegas, gambling has been a
hugely significant part of my life, and even though I’d never participate, I’m
kind of grateful for it, just because it has always been there, and honestly,
I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.
It’s a bad idea, but it’s a bad idea with a lot of historical background
to it, a bad idea that has stuck around for centuries.
I'm not a gambler either, but I do like card games a lot. It's kind of a family tradition. I love the way that knowledge of games is transmitted. Somehow almost everyone knows the same rules to many of the same games. You probably can't tell me you dont know how to play speed, BS, uno, 21. I also would doubt that you read how to play those games from a book. I know how to play lots of cardgames and love to collect knowledge of new ones. My favorite game though has only one rule. That you can't tell anyone the rules. It's called Mao and is only learned by observing, trial, and error. I suppose you could probably find the rules now on the internet because some spoilsport put them up, but generally the game is passed on without words. Ya'll should come play it some time.
ReplyDeleteWhat other things might be learned by strictly observation and without verbal communication?
ReplyDeleteWell Mo is definitely the first one to come to mind. I was sad when you mentioned it before I could. I would expand to less formal games, many card games are very complicated and come with written instructions. But I think games like Hide and go seek, london bridge is falling down, the patty cake games, old maid, probably chess and it's variations like bug house chess, and rock paper scissors would all fit the category of this kind of learning.
ReplyDeleteI love the game Mao! But anyways, I think a lot of the children's games mentioned above are taught verbally and with motions (unlike most card games) because they tell stories about the past. Examples are London Bridge is Falling Down and Ring Around the Rosies.
ReplyDeleteLauren! I liked how I knew what your post was going to be about just by looking at the title and the picture of people gambling in period clothes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the majority of your comments, and I just like the focus that we learn games in such a social context. In my family, even if it a really complicated game with the rules all written out and explicitly clear, one person gets assigned the task of reading the rule booklet. (The rest of us get ice cream while we wait.) Then the person that learned the rules from the book is in charge of teaching the rest of the family the game as we play. So even if their is a written record of how to play the game, we still like to learn it in a social and folk context. Because playing games and gambling is such a social activity, we prefer to learn it in a social setting too.