Gambling: Historical Origins Part A

1. Gambling: Historical Origins Part A (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

2. Caveman Clip • http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6661868034435078117&q=survival+of+the+fittest&total=768&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

3. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

4. Ancient Origins • Supposition • Risk taking has always been a part of the human condition • How does this relate to gambling? • Are they the same at a deep level? (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

5. Social-Historical Origins • Ancient story-tellers said that gambling was part of our lives for a reason: A cunning god or hero taught people to gamble. • But they did not say if it was for the better or for the worse. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

6. Social-Historical (contd). • We do not know who invented gambling. • But we do know that gambling developed around principles of risk, superstition, religion, and divination. • Thus, as our ancestors began to use tools more than a half million years ago, they began to modify stone, wood, and “bones.” • Originally, gambling was not based on amusement, but for the purposes of using supernatural or intuitive means to tell the future or reveal information hidden to reason. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

7. Odds and Evens: “The oldest Known Divination Game” • The oldest and most widespread divination games was “odds and evens.” • The essential elements of the game consist of using nuts or stones. An individual(s) would ask a question of a priest/shaman and the objects would then been thrown onto the ground. • If the result was even, the answer to the question would be “YES,” and if the odd the answer would be “NO.” • However, such meanings and divination telling lacked colorful interpretation . Thus, gaming/gambling would rely on more meaningful interpretations and greater randomness. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

8. Enter the Bones • Eventually rolling astragali (hucklebone) became the popular medium and object by which divination was decreed. • The astragali had four unsymmetrical large sides each standing for a particular outcome. • Eventually each side would be given a value. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

9. Astragali and Throw Value • Convex narrow = 1 • Convex broad = 3 • Concave broad = 4 • Concave narrow = 6 (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

10. Rolling the Bones: Divination and Beyond • Adding a bit of value and creativity , the line between gambling and divination becomes blurred. • For instance, hunter gather parties would roll the bones asking for guidance on which direction to look for game. Thus, in this instance they were employing divination. • However, when the hunter gather’s returned with the kill and rolled the bones to determine who would receive the best cuts, they were gambling. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

11. Early Societies and Gambling • While archaeologists continue to uncover gambling objects, it remains uncertain who first developed gambling. • However, what appears to be clear is that gambling appears to be common to cultures worldwide… • Except for, the native Australians, Pacific Islanders, sub-populations of subarctic of North America, inhabitants of the more remote reaches of India and South America, and the eastern half of sub-Saharan Africa. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

12. Gambling a Human Species Phenomena • As we turn to examine gambling worldwide, a second supposition about humans and gambling can be entertained… • People “somehow resolve to tolerate or ignore gambling and then adapt ideas to it. • Moreover, as we venture to examine gambling cultures, we learn that gambling did not spread in connection to a particular game, but its spread as an “attitude”. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

13. Middle East and Gambling • Thus, it appears the gambling and societies go hand in hand, with the first astragali being found between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, present day Iraq. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

14. These astragali were uncovered in Athens. These astragali were uncovered in Pompeii. These astragali were found in uncovered in Eurasia. A Closer Look at Astragali (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

15. From Bones to Dice • When the Mesopotamians began to file down hucklebones, the first steps where taken to toward modern dice. • It appears that the four sided astragali were at first transformed into cubes, as theory would have it, so as to make them roll more randomly. • Because of variations in bone density and structure, though, these cubical astragali wound have inevitably rolled unevenly. • The next logical step was to carve more honest dice out of ivory, wood, and other materials. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

16. The Rise of Dice • Early dice are were not like modern ones, today opposites sides add up to seven, while the Mesopotamian dice did not. • The first known dice have one opposite six, two opposite three, and four opposite five. • Other dice from other locations have different orientations. It was not until about 3,300 years ago that dice with sides arranged in the standard way began to predominate. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

17. The Rise of Dice • Interestingly, all dice from the past to the present have used dots and not numerals to indicate value. • Such a system predates the numeric system by 500 hundred years. • Mesopotamians utilized dice to play many games, five games have been found in the Royal tombs at Ur, suggesting that gaming was a respectable activity. • These games used four sided pyramidal dice. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

18. The Royal Game of Ur • The rules for UR or a ‘game of twenty squares' are talked about in cuneiform texts. It was a race game, with two players trying to beat each other to the end of the board. • People in many parts of the ancient world played the 'game of twenty squares' and boards have been found from Egypt to India, and date from around 3000 B.C. up until modern times. • A’ La Backgammon and Parchessi. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

19. Early Dice Games: Were the Mesopotamians Gambling? • While the games found and played in Mesopotamian may have not been strictly gambling, their archaeological history suggests that playing for amusement, money, or strategy was more permeable than it is today. • For example, the game of Ur exemplifies “war strategy,” a game of chance and risk-taking with the highest possible stakes. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

20. All in all, games of chance continued to proliferate across cultures worldwide with dice being the preferred tools of play. Dice from Rome: 1100 years old. Dice from Iran: 2300 years old Some Examples of Dice (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

21. Dice from Nepal: 500 hundred years old. Dice from Switzerland 400 years old Dice from Scandinavia 800 hundred years old. Some Examples of Dice (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

22. Some Examples of Dice • Dice from Hawaii 900 hundred years old • Dice from England 300 years old (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

23. Polyhedral Dice: Before Dungeons & Dragons… • Are you sure? Ancient Egypt (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

24. Gambling Cultures: Further East • While the culture of gaming and gambling was thriving throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and the Mediterranean, so to was gambling thriving in India. • And just as dice evolved from astragali in the these societies, in India, dice developed from brown nuts of the vibhitaka tree. • Meanwhile, Indians also were playing other games and possibly could be accredited with the domestication of chickens so as to gamble on their ferocious fighting known today as “cock fighting”. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

25. Gambling Cultures (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

26. Indian a Gaming Culture? • As popular as gambling was in Mesopotamia, India appears to eclipsed such a popularity. • For instance, one of the oldest known religious book in the world, the Rig Veda, an ancient collection of 1000 religious hymns, which was compiled over two hundred years, provides evidence that gambling, for better or worse, was a mainstay of Indian culture. • Hymn 34 in the tenth mandala is known as the gamblers hymn. The creation of such a hymn is believed to be have authored by gambling sage apparently who had lost everything through gambling. . . (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

27. The Gambler’s Hymn SPRUNG from tall trees on windy heights, these rollers transport me as they turn upon the table. The enlivening Vibhīdaka has pleased me like the draught of Soma from Mujavant. She never vexed me nor was angry with me, but was ever gracious to my friends and me. For a dice which scored one too much, I drive away my own devoted wife. My wife drives me away, her mother hates me: the wretched man finds none to give him comfort. [They say:] "I find no more use in a gambler than in an aged horse which is for sale." Others embrace the wife of him whose riches the victorious dice have coveted: Father and mother and brothers say about him [to the landlord's men]: "We know him not: tie him up and take him away." When I resolve "I will not play with them, I will remain behind when my friends [= fellow-gamblers] depart [to play]", and the brown dice, thrown on the board, have rattled, like a fond girl I seek the place of meeting. The gamester seeks the gambling-house, and wonders, his body all afire, "Will I be lucky?" The dice run against his desire, giving the best throws to his adversary. Dice, verily, are armed with goads and driving-hooks, deceiving and tormenting, causing grievous woe. They give gifts like boys [do], and then snatch them back from the winner,[they are] sweetened [as] with honey with magic power over the gambler. Their troop of three-times-fifty plays [as undefeatably] as Savitr the god whose ways are faithful. They bend not even to the anger of the mighty: the King himself pays homage and reveres them. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

28. The Gambler’s Hymn Downward they roll, and then spring quickly upward, and, handless, force the man with hands to serve them. Cast on the board, like lumps of magic charcoal, though cold themselves they burn the heart to ashes. The gambler's wife is left forlorn and wretched: the mother mourns the son who wanders homeless. In constant fear, in debt, and seeking money, he goes by night to the home of others [probably to steal]. Sad is the gambler when he sees a woman, another man's wife, and his well-ordered dwelling. He yokes the brown horses [= the dice] in the early morning, and in the evening he sinks down beside [his] fire, a beggar. To the great captain of your mighty army [of dice], who has become the host's imperial leader, To him I show [my] ten [extended fingers]: "I speak the truth: No wealth am I withholding.""Play not with dice, [but] cultivate your corn-land. Enjoy the gain, and deem that wealth sufficient. There are your cattle, there your wife, O gambler": So this good Savitr himself has told me. Make me your friend: show us some little mercy. Do not forcibly bewitch us with magic power. Let your wrath [and] emnity now come to rest. Let the brown [dice] now snare some other captive. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

29. In your opinion. . . • What is the meaning of the gamblers Hymn? (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

30. DSM-IV Pathological Gambling Criterion To be conferred /deemed a pathological gambler an individual must exemplify 5 of the following characteristics 1) Preoccupation with gambling; 2) Need to gamble with increasing amounts to achieve a elevated arousal; 3) Unsuccessful efforts to control, or stop gambling; 4) Agitated or irritable when attempting to reduce gambling; 5) Gambling as a way to escape dysphoric moods; 6) Returning after a losing day, to get even; 7) Lying to family and others about extent of one’s gambling; 8) Performing illegal acts to finance gambling; 9) Putting at risk a job, significant relationship or education to gamble; 10) Relying on others to provide money to help financial status caused by gambling. The sole exclusionary criterion where an individual is not deemed to be a pathological gambler, despite having the latter 10 characteristics, is that their gambling is better explained as being due to bi-polar disorder (DSM-IV-TR [APA, 2000] p. 199). (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

31. Similarities Between DSM and Gamblers Hymn? (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

32. Asian Culture and Gambling • East of India, the cultures of eastern Asia can be said to rival the greatest of any gambling culture. • Here, gambling for stakes was held the highest of intensity, beginning in the Shang dynasty nearly 4000 years ago. • Again divination and seeking to interpret events led the way, with Chinese oracles holding great power for their adeptness. (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

33. Asian Culture and Gambling • 1700 years later, gambling for stakes became entrenched in the Chinese mindset. • Types of games played during the next two thousand years included: • Animal fighting (from quails to crickets) • Board games • Dog races • First lottery (1000 AD) • Dice games turned into dominoes • Mahjong • Forerunners of bingo and keno (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZaogu88pc0

34. Gambling and Roman Times: A Metaphor For Life Itself • [Pliny the Elder] contemplating existence: “We are so much at the mercy of chance that Chance is our God”…. • [King Turnus] in preparing for battle: “Fortune favors the brave”… [Caesar] on the brink of civil war: “The die is cast”… [Nero] on being a gentleman: “True gentleman always throw their money about”… (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).

35. Myths and Legends: Bones to Dice Summing Up Gaming, gambling, culture, economy, and personhood, were all intertwined • Revenge over murders and wrongful deaths • Lessons and trials • Gods invented gambling • Gambling implicated in creation of earth and division of heavens • Creation of modern calendar • Birth, Death and Resurrection • Kingdoms created, lost, and won due to gambling • Gambling is a sin • Gambling sanctioned by moralists (Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).