ABSTRACT
The history of gambling is still plagued with poorly documented “facts” and misunderstood chronologies. Although many serious studies have been published in the last 30 years, general histories of gambling tend to ignore them, offering a jumble of clichés and anachronistic views. 1 I want to focus here on the material side of the history of gambling, the evolution of devices that helped gamblers play. Dice, playing cards, lotteries, and other gambling instruments have been subject to evolution and improvements over the past centuries. Game rules have changed too, being more and more complex, with, as it seems, a general objective: offering more reliable devices, and fairer outcomes. I will limit the time span to broadly four centuries, namely from 1370 to 1800, which is in itself considerable.
