{"id":7670,"date":"2022-09-15T13:27:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T13:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.com\/blog\/\/blog\/?p=7670"},"modified":"2024-04-11T10:04:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T10:04:16","slug":"gambling-ancient-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/15\/gambling-ancient-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"Gambling in Ancient Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
When it comes to examining the origins of gambling in society, it is tempting to look closely at the ancient civilizations in China and Egypt. However, should the lore of Ancient Greece be trusted, then the first ever dice game played was in fact by the Greek Gods! Legend has it that in order to divide up the universe, the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades decided to let fate decide. They rolled the dice to determine which god would rule which domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The die was cast, and the gods\u2019 roles were determined. Zeus would rule the heavens, Hades the underworld and Poseidon would take dominion over the seas. Later, the gods Hermes and Pan would also be depicted as being partial to a flutter in subsequent mythology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite seemingly having favour with the gods, gambling pained Greek philosophers. These thoughtful thinkers were so concerned about gambling, that they would even go so far as to say that the pastime would in fact become a plague on society!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In their first form, dice were not used for gambling or gaming at all. Rather, they were used as magical instruments that the early civilizations used to make divinations about the future. The original dice is thought to have had markings on just four sides and were made from bones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are different schools of thought about the true origin of the dice that we are familiar with today. Sophocles reported that Palamedes, a hero of the Trojan War, invented dice during his downtime in around 1200BC. Alternatively, Herodotus claimed that they were in fact first established during the reign of King Atys some 800 years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nInventing the Dice?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n