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The online gambling sector sprung up in October 1994, when the Liechtenstein International Lottery began selling tickets to their lotto draws over the internet. That same month, the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda passed into law its Free Trade and Processing Act, becoming the world’s initial licensor of betting sites.
Following that occurrence, the Isle of Man company Microgaming developed the original online casino software. However, this sphere had still not ironed out many of the kinks associated with running businesses digitally, so it was not entirely up and running. That happened in 1996 when InterCasino launched, and two hundred new casino sites hit the World Wide Web. As the years went on, the number of interactive gaming platforms began to rise. Below, we look into five significant events that have driven this sector to grow into the juggernaut it is today.
WagerLogic Invents the First Online Casino Payment System
CryptoLogic is an Ireland-based software company founded in 1995 in Toronto by brothers Mark and Andrew Rivkin. These Canadians began operating CryptoLogic out of their parent’s basement, hoping to find an application for their secure internet money transaction system. In 1996, the duo created a subsidiary named WagerLogic, which developed gambling software solutions, licensing its technology to InterCasino, kicking off a new entertainment genre, online casino betting. In 2012, it got bought by the Amaya Gaming Group, the owner of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, for $36 million.
Intertops Becomes the Original Mobile Gambling Site
Intertops is not a brand that instantly pops to mind when discussing the online gambling industry, let alone its technology innovations. However, the reality is that the history of gambling sites cannot get told without mentioning it. What is super interesting about Intertops is that it was the first sportsbook to set up shop in one country to target players in another. Moreover, what makes them significant is that they were the initial gambling site to have a mobile version (2000) and the first one to host casino games, poker, and sports betting through one domain.
Playtech Debuts the Live Dealer Format
Many remote gamblers think that live dealer games are an invention that operators came up with during this past decade. Yet, that is an inaccurate notion, as UK’s digital gaming giant Playtech debuted the first such gambling hub in 2003. It had a soft launch from a studio in Manila, the Philippines, catering to the Asian market. Nowadays, Playtech operates live croupier studios from Romania and Latvia.
Crypto Dice Appears via SatoshiDice
Bitcoin got invented in 2009 by a person or group going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Two years after this digital coin coming into existence, online gambling platforms that accepted it for betting began surfacing. According to many, SatoshiDice was the earliest crypto dice site around. However, some contest this claim. In short, crypto dice gaming products are an elementary form of gambling. Users set a number from a predefined range, and they pick an over or under option before pressing roll. What was revolutionary about these games was that they required no registration, and players could verify the randomness of all results.
Atari Opens a Virtual Casino
In February of 2020, the metaverse Decentraland opened its doors to the public. It is one of many Ethereum-powered virtual shared spaces that features an ERC-20 token-based economy. A little over a year after its launch, Japanese video game developer Atari announced the debut of a virtual casino inside this metaverse. The first of its kind, which is now fully operational, accepting MANA wagers.
