Gambling Through Time: Part 5 - The rise of online gaming

As we've explored in the first four parts of our gambling history series, today's casino games have been reimagined many times over. That said, one relatively recent technological discovery revolutionized casino games and how they're played forever. The Internet, and more specifically the introduction of online gaming, took gambling to a whole new level when it made it available to the world.

In 1994, the islands of Antigua and Barbuda passed important free trade legislation that allowed for the licensing of the first online casinos. In a prescient move, software company Microgaming developed the first online casino software that same year. There is much debate over which online casino was the true first. Some historians say it was InterCasino, launched in 1996, while others point to Internet Casinos Inc (ICI), launched in 1995. The first online sportsbook, Intertops, followed shortly thereafter (also in 1996).

Though free poker was a common distraction in online chat rooms throughout the early 1990s, the first official cash game of online poker was hosted at Planet Poker on January 1, 1998. In those first years, online casinos might offer ten to twenty classic games, and poker rooms had only a handful of tables. The graphics were basic, the games were slow, and the sites were plagued by cheaters and hackers. In response to industry wide safety and security issues, Microgaming partnered with 888 in 2002 to create today's most popular regulatory organization, eCOGRA.

Though live poker tournaments like the WSOP had seen steady growth since their inception in the 1970s, it was the introduction of online tournament satellites—where everyday players could earn seats to major events—that inspired the explosive growth of poker in the new millennium. For example, the 2003 WSOP Main Event Champion Chris Moneymaker earned his $10,000 buy in at a PokerStars satellite. His win inspired millions of amateur poker players, and in the year following Moneymaker's Main Event triumph, the WSOP saw its participation triple.

The passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 made online casino and poker room operators in America outlaws, but that didn't stop the rest of the world from enjoying online games. Most of Europe readily embraces online gambling in all its forms, and Asia, Australia and South America all allow limited forms of online gambling. The popularity and profitability of the industry may change America's mind; the U.S. Government is considering new online gambling legislation as we speak.

While traditional brick and mortar gambling establishments struggle to stay out of the red, the online gambling industry continues to grow; in 2009, the poker sector alone was valued at $17 billion.