This gambling trivia quiz covers the whole history of betting in 50 free questions with answers: Bronze Age dice and Tang-dynasty playing cards, the Ridotto in Venice, Pascal's accidental roulette wheel, Bugsy Siegel and the Flamingo, the Strip that isn't in Las Vegas, Macau overtaking Vegas, Monte Carlo and the night black came up 26 times, the Liberty Bell slot machine, keno's terrible odds, the oldest lottery, the biggest jackpot, card counting and the MIT team, Archie Karas's run, the Kentucky Derby, and the great gambling films. It starts with questions anyone who has walked past a casino can answer and works up to ones for people who know their house edges. It is written for adults and stays factual and neutral about a subject that ruins as many people as it thrills. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered. Play the full set for a shareable score.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On a standard die, the numbers on opposite faces always add up to what?
Seven
Terracotta dice from the Indus Valley, 4,000 years old, already followed the rule.
Q 02The oldest known dice, from around 2800 to 2500 BC, were found at the Burnt City in which modern country?
Iran
They were part of a backgammon-like set; Romans later played with two sizes of dice despite official bans on gambling.
Q 03Playing cards were invented in which country, around the 9th century?
China
They reached Europe via Mamluk Egypt in the late 1300s, and the French suits we use were fixed around 1480.
Q 04The joker was added to the deck in the United States around 1860 as a trump card for which game?
Euchre
The ace of spades, meanwhile, once carried England's tax stamp, which is why it is still the fancy one.
Q 05The Ridotto, generally considered the first casino, opened in 1638 in which city?
Venice
Patrons had to wear masks and three-cornered hats; the city closed it in 1774 to preserve public piety.
Q 06The word "roulette" is French for what?
Little wheel
The wheel is often traced to Blaise Pascal's 17th-century attempts at a perpetual motion machine.
Q 07The single-zero roulette wheel was introduced in 1843 by the Blanc brothers in which German spa town?
Bad Homburg
It halved the house edge to 2.7 percent; American wheels kept the double zero and its 5.26 percent.
Q 08What is the house edge on a double-zero American roulette wheel?
5.26%
No betting system beats it: every pattern-based strategy loses on average over time.
Q 09What happened when Ashley Revell bet his entire $135,300 on a single roulette spin in 2004?
He won on red
The ball landed on red seven and he walked out with $270,600.
Q 10In 1913 at Monte Carlo, black came up how many times in a row as gamblers lost fortunes on red?
26
The episode gave the gambler's fallacy its other name, the Monte Carlo fallacy.
Q 11The gambler's fallacy holds that a random outcome that has happened less often than expected is now what?
More likely
Its mirror image is the hot-hand fallacy, expecting a streak to continue.
Q 12Who is famously forbidden from entering the gaming rooms of the Monte Carlo Casino?
Citizens of Monaco
Princess Caroline imposed the rule on moral grounds; the casino was redesigned by Paris Opera architect Charles Garnier.
Q 13Joseph Jagger "broke the bank at Monte Carlo" in 1873 by exploiting what?
A biased roulette wheel
The music-hall song about breaking the bank was probably inspired by a later winner, Charles Wells.
Q 21In which year did Nevada legalise casino gambling?
1931
New Hampshire launched the first modern state lottery in 1963 and Atlantic City approved casinos in 1976.
Q 22Which two US states ban every form of gambling, including lotteries?
Utah and Hawaii
The 2018 Murphy v. NCAA ruling let the other states legalise sports betting.
Q 23The 2018 Supreme Court case that opened the door to legal US sports betting was Murphy v. whom?
NCAA
It struck down the 1992 federal law that had confined sports books almost entirely to Nevada.
Which gambling hub overtook the Las Vegas Strip in gaming revenue in 2007?
Q 14Charles Fey's Liberty Bell, built in San Francisco around 1895, was an early version of what?
The slot machine
Its three reels carried horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a cracked bell.
Q 15Why did lemons, cherries and plums end up as symbols on early one-armed bandits?
Machines dispensed fruit-flavoured gum
The gum attachment got around anti-gambling laws and gave Britain the term "fruit machine".
Q 16Roughly what share of an average US casino's income comes from slot machines?
About 70%
The first fully electromechanical machine, Bally's Money Honey, arrived in 1963 and could pay out 500 coins on its own.
Q 17The Las Vegas Strip mostly lies outside the city of Las Vegas, in which unincorporated town?
Paradise
The 4.2-mile stretch technically sits in Paradise and Winchester in Clark County.
Q 18Which resort was the first full-service casino hotel on what became the Strip, opening in April 1941?
El Rancho Vegas
It had 63 bungalow rooms; the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign did not go up until 1959.
Q 19Which mobster financed the Flamingo, which opened in December 1946?
Bugsy Siegel
His bosses believed he had skimmed about $1 million; he was shot dead through a Beverly Hills window in June 1947.
Q 20The Mirage's 1989 opening is credited with starting the mega-resort era. What attraction sat outside it?
A volcano
The Bellagio's fountains followed in 1998, and the MGM Grand, one of the world's largest hotels, opened in 1993.
Macau
It is the only place in its country where casinos are legal, and gaming taxes fund about three-quarters of its government.
Q 25Which game produced about 91 percent of Macau's casino income in 2014?
Baccarat
The punto banco version is the only game played in the VIP rooms; the banker bet's house edge is just 1.06 percent.
Q 26Which businessman held the exclusive gambling concession in Macau from 1962 until 2001?
Stanley Ho
The market was liberalised in 2002, and the Venetian Macao is now the territory's largest casino.
Q 27Blackjack descends from a Spanish game first described by which author, in 1601-02?
Miguel de Cervantes
The game was veintiuno, twenty-one; the name blackjack only stuck in America around 1899.
Q 28Whose 1963 book Beat the Dealer proved that card counting could beat the casino at blackjack?
Edward O. Thorp
The MIT professor's maths turned blackjack into the most-played casino banking game in the world.
Q 29What is the traditional payout for a natural blackjack?
3 to 2
Some casinos have quietly cut it to 6 to 5, which roughly triples the house edge on the game.
Q 30The MIT Blackjack Team's exploits inspired the 2008 film 21 and which Ben Mezrich book?
Bringing Down the House
The team, formally launched in 1980 with $89,000, used spotters to count and big players to swoop in when the deck turned hot.