Who Invented Poker – Who Popularized Poker and Developed the Rules

The question of who invented poker gets asked quite a lot, but a concise answer just seems impossible. It turns out there were many lookalikes in ancient times. Which one was the true inspiration behind the modern game of poker? We will investigate the matter in the current post and show you where our own research led us. This should be a real eye-opener, so let’s get started!

Early Beginnings of Poker

The inspiration behind modern-day poker, by all accounts, came from more than one source. The influence of many games on the rules and names can be easily spotted if you know where to look. Actually, the games that could qualify as an ancestor of poker are so many that it’s only appropriate to present them with a listing. These can all be considered predecessors of poker as we know it today:

It may prove nearly impossible to get to the bottom of who invented poker or who invented poker cards. Still, historians know for sure that variants very close to Stud poker and Five Card Draw poker were played in the distant past. Those include variations with 52 cards and 20 cards. Back in the day, heads-up games were commonly played with a deck of only 20 cards. The 20-card poker format known from the past brings us back to the Persian As-Nas, whose gameplay is almost identical.

Where Poker Was Invented

There are those who have their arguments as to why all the games preceding poker are not a direct precursor. Before asking who invented the game of poker, we should be more concerned with the ‘where’ first. And that is the United States of America’s Mississippi River region. This is, partly, why poker is one of the legal gambling forms according to the current Mississippi gambling laws.

Experts agree that poker is defined by its unique betting features, which cannot be found in any of the early games of foreign origin we mentioned earlier. The only thing close enough to the betting game of poker is what was played back in the day in the Mississippi River region.

How Poker Was Invented

The rules of tournament poker were invented out of necessity, believe it or not. The same goes for regulation. A real-money game of this calibre needed balanced rules, rooted in mathematical probability that the common man can easily understand. Those who invented Texas Holdem poker didn’t create the game overnight. On the contrary – all variants evolved over the course of many years to become the action-packed game we now watch with bated breath on TV and YouTube.

Who Invented Poker Cards

Who invented poker cards is a question as old as the game itself. It turns out that the Chinese were playing a poker-resembling domino game centuries before Doyle Brunson would win his WSOP title. The cards (or pieces) had red and black suits forming a number, much like in dominos. Much later, at the beginning of the 12th century, the standard 52-card deck first appeared in Europe under the name Mamluk.

The face of the cards was wildly different from today’s cards, while the back was richly ornamented. That was fine not only for the time but, as you know, the back of playing cards is decorated in a similar fashion even today. The significance of Mamluk playing cards is that the deck consisted of 52 pieces. This is the direct link to poker nowadays that we were looking for!

The Men Who Invented Poker

Poker variations come in all shapes and sizes, so we can’t possibly be talking about one ‘inventor’ when it comes to the origins of the game. As gambling developed throughout the years, more and more variations came to life, some of which were exclusively played in tournaments, others – more suitable for cash gameplay. And then, let’s not forget that casino poker was also an important development in the history of the game. Considering all these things, we found the names of the key figures who invented poker in its most popular forms:

Texas Holdem

The man who invented Texas Holdem poker is not as big of a mystery as the origins of the general concept of the game. As the name points out, this was a Texas gambler that went by the name of T. “Blondie” Forbes. He was commonly known in Texas, and more specifically, the city of Robstown – now officially considered the place of origin of Texas Holdem. It’s commonly agreed that Forbes came up with the concept of Texas Holdem between 1920 and 1930.

Casino Holdem

The earliest form of Casino Holdem was derived from the rules and hands in 5-card stud. The man who put everything together was David Sklansky – an early author of gambling books and a professional gambler. And so, he introduced changes to the rules that would make the game more casino-friendly. Grand Holiday Casino was the first establishment to bring Casino Holdem to its clients. Consequently, as interest from other casinos went on the rise, Casino Poker started spreading.

Omaha

The exact circumstances around the creation of Omaha Holdem are largely unknown. That means we may never learn the name of the man who invented the game of poker called Omaha. However, what we do know is that under the influence of Robert Turner, Omaha was offered for the first time at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. At its core, Omaha is a marriage between the Stud and Holdem rules. The tradition of using a deck with 52 cards is carried over to this day.

Chinese Poker

As with everything Chinese, it’s a guessing game about how old Chinese Poker is. Some say that Pai Gow is the first attempt at creating a gambling game matching the affinity of the Chinese people for making wagers. We don’t want to go down that route because that would be pure speculation. Instead, we can tell you about the modern-day ambassador of Chinese Poker – Alex Kravchenko. Kravchenko made the game known to the high-roller gambling community in Russia.

Who Invented Online Poker

As it stands, online poker has a history of over 24 years, starting as what was then called ‘IRC poker’. It’s highly unlikely that the person who invented the game of poker had ever imagined that something like the IRC chat protocol would be used to host poker games on the internet.

That happened anyway. Then Planet Poker stepped it up, becoming the first official online poker room in 1998. Again, there’s no name we can point out as the founding father of online poker, but we can confidently throw in the name of Mike Caro, who popularized Planet Poker.

Nowadays, you can find variations of casino poker at some of the licensed roulette casino sites, but it’s worth noting that the online poker sites are a different breed. There’s a ton of them out there too! PokerStars is often suggested as the pioneer who invented online poker as we know it today. Not that they invented it, but they certainly revolutionized the way the game is played online. The site operates even today in many countries around the world.

Short History of Poker

Without a doubt, a huge landmark for the popularization of poker was the beginning of the World Series of Poker in 1970. Being the biggest televised poker event, the tournament was a natural catalyst for the popularization of the game and, sure enough, it acted like that. Years later, California legislators took heed of what was becoming a trend and legalized flop games. Here is how the early history of poker unfolded.

The 21st century has been all about online expansion and adding high-stakes tournaments and charitable events to the calendar as far as poker is concerned. Just like the prize pools, the interest in poker keeps rising. We also have to give it to the top operators in the field of online gambling, who know how to market the game to the appropriate audiences. Of course, let’s not forget all the poker movies released in the 21st century, that inspired generations of aspiring players.

FAQ

Poker fans all over the internet have tons of questions about the game, where it originated, and how the rules we know today were established. For your convenience, we gathered, in one place, the seven most asked questions about who invented poker and gave an answer to them in the form of bite-sized pieces of relevant information.

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