A Historical Overview of the Internet Gambling

The history of online casino games began in 1994 in Antigua and Barbuda. The new law allowed the granting of licenses for the opening of Internet casinos. Unfortunately, there was no software to play online casino. The first online casino company “Microgaming” was founded, followed by CryptoLogic. These companies have developed software and security technologies for online casinos and nowadays they are known as the giants of the internet gaming world. In 1996, the world’s first online casino lobby was opened.

In the first years, the online casinos grew enormously. Two factors were very important. The speed with which the Internet and the technology grew was huge. Secondly, the number of online casino games multiplied with a constant demand for software development. The first progressive jackpot and cash splash were presented by Microgaming.

The joy did not take long, the first opponents of online casinos showed up very quickly. In 1998 the Republican Senator explained the “Internet Gambling Prohibition Act”. Already during this time, the online game industry had a value of $1 billion. Six years, Senator Kyl has spent time lobbying and implementing anti-gambling laws.

Already in 1999, there were almost 700 online casinos. In the same year, the first and last Australian online casino opened. Microgaming conducted the first independent review and payout reviews of casino games. So Microgaming set a standard for the security of the game for all online casinos.
In the second millennium, the EU state of Gibraltar was included in the list of licensors and became one of the largest online casinos in the world. Despite the anti-gambling law in the US Congress in 2002 and 2003, the largest casinos had over half a million players. Today, the value of online casinos is estimated to be $49 billion.