From Las Vegas to Blackpool: 12 Incredible Casino Stories You Probably Never Knew -
Bright lights. Spinning roulette wheels. The turn of a playing card. The unmistakable sound of a casino in full swing.
Casinos have developed their own culture over hundreds of years – and behind the games are some extraordinary stories.
From a mathematician accidentally helping to inspire roulette to the birth of the Las Vegas Strip, here are 12 pieces of casino history to impress your friends with next time you visit Coral Island Casino.
Today, Las Vegas is synonymous with casinos, entertainment and some of the world's most extravagant hotels.
But the Las Vegas we recognise today is relatively young.
Nevada legalised casino gambling in 1931, but the famous Strip developed over the decades that followed.
One of the first major resort-style properties on what we now call the Strip was El Rancho Vegas, which opened in 1941.
Then came increasingly ambitious resorts – and Las Vegas began its transformation from desert city to global entertainment capital.
It's one of the great Las Vegas legends.
Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is often credited with dreaming up the Flamingo and, by extension, helping create modern Las Vegas.
The real story is more complicated.
The Flamingo project was originally conceived by Hollywood nightclub owner Billy Wilkerson. Siegel became involved after Wilkerson ran into financial difficulties and ultimately took control of the unfinished development.
The Flamingo opened in December 1946 and became one of the properties most closely associated with the glamorous new Las Vegas.
Siegel didn't enjoy his fame for long. He was murdered in Beverly Hills in June 1947.
Frank Sinatra.
Dean Martin.
Sammy Davis Jr.
Peter Lawford.
Joey Bishop.
The Rat Pack became inseparable from the image of 1960s Las Vegas, particularly through performances at the Sands.
And their era helped establish something incredibly important:
A casino destination didn't have to be just about gaming.
Shows, restaurants, bars, celebrities, glamour and entertainment could all be part of the experience.
That philosophy still shapes casino resorts around the world today.
When Caesars Palace opened in 1966, it took casino theming to another level.
Its co-founder Jay Sarno didn't simply want to build another hotel.
He wanted guests to feel surrounded by Roman luxury.
Even the name was deliberate.
It's Caesars Palace, not Caesar's Palace.
Why?
Because the idea was that every guest could be a Caesar – rather than the palace belonging to one Caesar.
That's an impressive amount of thinking for one missing apostrophe.
Blaise Pascal was a 17th-century French mathematician, physicist and inventor.
While trying to develop a perpetual-motion machine, his experiments involved a spinning wheel.
Although Pascal didn't simply sit down and “invent roulette” as we know it, his work is frequently connected with the development of the game.
By the late 18th century, recognisable forms of roulette were being played in France.
More than two centuries later, the wheel remains one of the world's great casino icons.
Take a close look at roulette wheels on opposite sides of the Atlantic and you may spot an important difference.
A standard European wheel has:
Numbers 1–36 + a single 0.
Traditional American roulette has:
Numbers 1–36 + 0 + 00.
That extra 00 changes the mathematics of the game.
On a single-zero European wheel, the standard house edge is approximately 2.7%.
On a traditional double-zero American wheel, it's approximately 5.26%.
Same famous game.
Quite different maths.
Games resembling modern blackjack were being played in Europe centuries ago.
One important ancestor was the French game Vingt-et-Un – literally “Twenty-One”.
When Twenty-One became popular in America, some gambling houses reportedly offered special bonuses to attract players.
One promotion involved a black jack – either the jack of clubs or jack of spades – alongside an ace.
The bonus disappeared.
The name didn't.
And “blackjack” became one of the most recognisable names in casino gaming.
Why are sevens everywhere in casino imagery?
Human beings have attached significance to seven for an extraordinarily long time.
Seven days of the week.
Seven wonders of the ancient world.
Seven colours traditionally identified in a rainbow.
Seven notes in the conventional Western musical scale.
Its cultural association with luck eventually became part of gaming imagery too – particularly on slot machines.
So when you see a row of lucky 7s, there's a lot of history sitting behind that symbol.
Casino chips are one of gaming's most recognisable objects.
But their design serves practical purposes too.
Different denominations can use distinctive colours and markings, while modern casino chips may contain increasingly sophisticated security features.
At major casino properties, chips can be designed specifically for that casino and closely controlled.
Which makes the humble casino chip an interesting combination of currency, branding and security technology.
Imagine a roulette wheel has landed on black five times in a row.
Surely red must be coming?
No.
This is one of gambling's most famous misconceptions: the gambler's fallacy.
On a properly operating roulette game, previous spins don't make red or black “due”.
Each spin is a new event.
A run of blacks might look extraordinary to us because human brains love patterns – but the wheel doesn't remember what happened five spins ago.
Think casino gaming is all cards, chips and wheels?
Casino technology has constantly evolved.
Mechanical slot machines gave way to electromechanical machines.
Those evolved into video slots.
Electronic table games arrived.
Digital technology transformed how games could look and operate.
But despite all that innovation, some of the oldest games remain among the most recognisable.
A roulette wheel still looks unmistakably like roulette.
A deck of cards is still at the heart of blackjack.
Sometimes great ideas don't need reinventing.
Las Vegas undoubtedly occupies a special place in casino history.
Monte Carlo has its glamour.
Macau has become another giant of global gaming.
But casino culture has travelled far beyond those famous destinations.
And here in Blackpool, Coral Island Casino has its own place within Britain's great entertainment town.
So next time you sit down at a blackjack table, watch a roulette wheel spin or discover a new game, remember:
You're taking part in an entertainment tradition with centuries of stories behind it.
And there are plenty more still to discover.
Discover more at Coral Island Casino.
18+. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling should always be treated as entertainment.
Check out ‘what’s on’ in Blackpool and at Coral Island Casino.