The word "casino" is so overused in Las Vegas. Have you ever been asked what the word means, where it comes from, and when and where the first casino appeared? Either way, I'd like to know.
We searched the archives and to the best of our knowledge and recollection, you're the first one to ask any of these questions.
We'll answer them in reverse order.
In the mid-1500s, gambling flourished in the northern part of what's now Italy, especially around Venice, a hotbed of mercantilism. The common classes gambled in public -- on street corners and in plazas. The upper classes gambled in ridotti -- private places that hosted the aristocracy for eating and drinking, dancing, and participating in their games of chance of choice.
By the turn of the 1600s, the ridotti had been transformed from places where the nobility allowed gambling to where they employed the dealers, banked the games, and raked a piece of the action, thereby profiting from the gambling they hosted.
In 1638, the Great Council of Venice finally sanctioned the practice in a single venue, the four-story San Moise Palace, known as the Ridotto (singular of ridotti). In Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling, author David Schwartz calls it "the first legal state-sanctioned public gambling house in European history -- from this notable edifice, today's casino industry can rightfully claim descent."
It took nearly 140 years, but in 1774 after seven generations of Italian and European noble families gambled away their fortunes, the Ridotto was shuttered for good. But gambling didn't exactly disappear from the Italian peninsula. Far from it. It was simply decentralized to, in Schwartz's description, "over 100 illicit ridotti and casini." Casini is the plural of casino, which in Italian means "small house."
Schwartz comments, "Originally, a casino was a gathering place, a clubhouse. Casini soon became centers for gossip and gambling." So that's where the word "casino" comes from; in English, the plural, of course, is casinos.
By the way, we highly recommend Roll the Bones. It's one of those rare non-fiction books that reads like a novel, as entertaining and well-developed as fiction, but historically accurate and enlightening.
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Bart93491
Jul-29-2017
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