John Ashton - The History of Gambling in England

All Rights Reserved

BY

JOHN ASHTON

author of Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne,

A History of English Lotteries, etc.

LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1898

Difference between Gaming and GamblingUniversality and Antiquity of GamblingIsis and OsirisGames and Dice of the EgyptiansChina and IndiaThe JewsAmong the Greeks and RomansAmong MahometansEarly DicingDicing in England in the 13th and 14th CenturiesIn the 17th CenturyCelebrated GamblersBourchierSwiss AnecdoteDicing in the 18th Century.

Gaming is derived from the Saxon word Gamen, meaning joy, pleasure, sports, or gamingand is so interpreted by Bailey, in his Dictionary of 1736; whilst Johnson gives Gambleto play extravagantly for money, and this distinction is to be borne in mind in the perusal of this book; although the older term was in use until the invention of the lateras we see in Cottons Compleat Gamester (1674), in which he gives the following excellent definition of the word:Gaming is an enchanting witchery, gotten between Idleness and Avarice: an itching disease, that makes some scratch the head, whilst others, as if they were bitten by a Tarantula, are laughing themselves to death; or, lastly, it is a paralytical distemper, which, seizing the arm, the man cannot chuse but shake his elbow. It hath this ill property above all other Vices, that it renders a man incapable of prosecuting any serious action, and makes him always unsatisfied with his own condition; he is either lifted up to the top of mad joy with success, or plungd to the bottom of despair by misfortune, always in extreams, always in a storm; this minute the Gamesters countenance is so serene and calm, that one would think nothing could disturb it, and the next minute, so stormy and tempestuous that it threatens destruction to itself and others; and, as he is transported with joy when he wins, so, losing, is he tost upon the billows of a high swelling passion, till he hath lost sight, both of sense and reason.