According to those historians who study such things, gambling has been part of human society from an era before we had any written history. And of course in such early times virtually anything could be a basis for gambling since really most people didn’t have much idea as to what might and what might not happen.
If you wanted to bet on tomorrow’s weather, you could. If you wanted to gamble on who would come back from the day’s hunt in one piece – yes you could gamble on that as well.
In fact that sort of gambling became quite popular since a hunter betting on his own successful return from the hung couldn’t lose. Or at least if he did lose, he wouldn’t really know bout it, since the animal he was hunting would have won!
Now of course we know that some songwriters have taken up the theme of gambling in their songs, and none no more so than Bob Dylan. But what makes his work particularly worthy of notice is the sheer variety of his gambling songs.
For he doesn’t just write about gambling but also the people involved in the gambling. We don’t learn too much about the sort of gambling what we find out about is the fact that the gambling was there.
But we know that gambling was prevalent in China in the 9th century, and was a major part of social life in Japan by the 14th century. Card games became popular as soon as what became the United States was colonised. As for the first casino that was reported as operating in Venice in the early 17th century.
Yet even with such a long and established history there are still new innovations, and new approaches. Dylan as we know has sung about gambling multiple times – you’ll find one of my favourites below. And of course if you want to explore gambling a little further yourself, we can oblige…..