Notable Events in Online Gambling History

Despite only emerging in early 1990s, the history of online gambling has already taken a number of dramatic turns and undergone more changes than its land based counterpart.

Although standalone Poker/ casino games had been around since the 1980s, it was only in the early 1994 that the history of online gambling can be said to have truly begun. To be more precise, it was the enactment into law of the Free Trade and Processing Act by the Antigua Barbuda administration that paved the way for the issuing of licenses for online casinos.

The next couple of years would witness the growth and development of online casino software. Boss Media would become one of the leading developers of a system that would allow for the smooth operation of casinos on the Net. Microgaming, on the other hand, would go on to create pioneering games and also other technologies.

In early 1996 the history of online gambling would take a big step when InterCasino begins accepting real money bets. At the same time, Cryptologic's work on the creation of a secure payment transaction method pays off, and people start to play and pay online.

By 1998, revenues from online gambling had reached over $800 million worldwide. While the business continued to grow in various parts of the world, it began to face a battle in America as Senator Jon Kyl introduced a bill seeking to ban websites from peddling their products to people living in the U.S.

At the dawn of the new millennium, two other important events would take palce; the first is the development of the multiplayer casino game, courtesy of Boss Media. This would take online gambling to new heights. While opposition from Congress continued to hamper the growth of the industry in America, Gibraltar commenced to grant licenses to operators.

Three years later in 2002, it is reported that people had spent over $4 billion online. At the same time, the number of winners increased like never before in the history of online gambling; this included the first winner of a $1 million slot jackpot, and Chris Moneymaker wins the World Series of Poker, the first Internet player to do so.

In spite of the legal questions, there are now over 2,700 online casinos, with revenues exceeding $10 billion. With even more sophisticated games and bigger jackpots and cash, it is expected that the online gambling will continue to expand even more.