Gambling
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6correct to beat the crowd
This gambling trivia quiz covers the whole history of betting in 37 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 37 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On a standard die, the numbers on opposite faces always add up to what?
Seven
Seven: that rule forces the 1, 2 and 3 faces to meet at one corner, leaving just two mirror-image layouts for a die.
Q 02Playing cards most likely first appeared in which country, around the 9th century?
China
China: cards probably grew out of printing on paper there, and they reached Europe through the Islamic world by the 1370s.
Q 03The joker was first added to the American deck as the top trump for which card game?
Euchre
Euchre: a British firm was soon printing jokers for American packs, a few years before British packs carried one.
Q 04The word "roulette" is French for what?
Little wheel
Little wheel: its zero pockets are what give the house its edge.
Q 05The single-zero roulette wheel was introduced in 1843 by the Blanc brothers in which German spa town?
Bad Homburg
Bad Homburg: the Blanc twins had opened its casino in 1841, and François later took his business to Monaco to run the Monte Carlo casino.
Q 06Which roulette betting system tells players to double their stake after every loss?
Martingale
Martingale: the first win recovers every earlier loss plus one stake, but a long losing streak can wipe out the player's bankroll.
Q 07What happened when Ashley Revell bet his entire $135,300 on a single roulette spin in 2004?
He won on red
He won on red and walked out with $270,600, doubling his stake; he had sold everything he owned, including his clothes, to raise the $135,300.
Q 08Wild Bill Hickok was reputedly holding which two pairs when he was shot dead at a poker table in 1876?
Aces and eights
Aces and eights: the story made black aces and eights known as poker's 'dead man's hand'.
Q 09The gambler's fallacy holds that a random outcome that has happened less often than expected is now what?
More likely
More likely: lottery studies found that betting on a number falls sharply right after that number has been drawn.
Q 10Who is famously forbidden from entering the gaming rooms of the Monte Carlo Casino?
Citizens of Monaco
Citizens of Monaco: yet the casino itself was opened to rescue the ruling Grimaldi family from bankruptcy.
Q 11Charles Fey's Liberty Bell, built in San Francisco in the 1890s, was an early version of what?
The slot machine
The slot machine: the Liberty Bell proved so popular that rival makers copied its basic design.
Q 12Which game in Japan's noisy parlours pays out in prizes that players can then sell for cash nearby?
Pachinko
Pachinko: gambling for cash is illegal in Japan, so parlours hand out prizes that nominally separate shops buy back.
Q 13The Las Vegas Strip mostly lies outside the city of Las Vegas, in which unincorporated town?
Paradise
Paradise: even so, the addresses of the Strip's resorts there still say Las Vegas.
Q 21Which businessman held Macau's exclusive gambling concession for about four decades from 1962?
Stanley Ho
Stanley Ho: he and his partners won the 1961 public tender, displacing the company that had run Macau's casinos before.
Q 22The early card game veintiuna appears in a novella by which Spanish author?
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes: in Rinconete y Cortadillo, a young card sharp boasts that he has earned his living playing veintiuna.
Q 23What is the traditional payout for a natural blackjack?
3 to 2
3 to 2: a $10 natural wins $15, though many tables pay only 6 to 5, a rule strongly in the casino's favour.
Q 14Which resort was the first full-service casino hotel on what became the Strip, opening in April 1941?
El Rancho Vegas
El Rancho Vegas: Thomas Hull built it on Highway 91, just outside the city limits, to catch motorists driving in from Los Angeles.
Q 15Which mobster took over Billy Wilkerson's unfinished Flamingo resort, which opened in December 1946?
Bugsy Siegel
Bugsy Siegel: costs soared under him, his mob investors grew impatient, and he was shot dead in June 1947.
Q 16Which free attraction sat out front of the Mirage, the 1989 resort that began the Strip's megaresort era?
A volcano
A volcano: after buying the resort, Hard Rock planned a guitar-shaped hotel tower to stand where the volcano was.
Q 17Which two US states ban every form of gambling, including lotteries?
Utah and Hawaii
Utah and Hawaii: Utah's constitution forbids its legislature to authorise any game of chance or lottery 'under any pretense'.
Q 18The 2018 Supreme Court case that opened the door to legal US sports betting was Murphy v. whom?
NCAA
NCAA: the college body and the major pro leagues had sued to block New Jersey's betting law, and the Court struck down the 1992 federal ban.
Q 19Which Asian country charges its own citizens and permanent residents a daily levy to enter its casinos?
Singapore
Singapore: the levy, S$150 a day or S$3,000 a year, aims to deter casual and impulse gambling by locals.
Q 20Which game produced about 91 percent of Macau's casino income in 2014?
Baccarat
Baccarat: high rollers betting borrowed cash in private VIP rooms drove much of that income.
Q 24In craps, what is a roll of two ones called?
Snake eyes
Snake eyes: rolled on the come-out, that 2 loses a pass-line bet, just as a 3 or a 12 does.
Q 25Which US state launched the first modern state lottery, in 1964?
New Hampshire
New Hampshire: its towns voted by special ballot to allow it, and its profits have gone to the state's public schools.
Q 26Craps is thought to take its name from 'crabs', the lowest throws in which older dice game?
Hazard
Hazard: the old dice game's name later took on its everyday meaning of risk or danger.
Q 27The $2.04 billion jackpot of November 2022, then a world record, was won in which US game?
Powerball
Powerball: the Altadena gas station that sold the winning ticket earned its owner a $1 million bonus.
Q 28The word "jackpot" comes from an 1880s poker rule about which cards?
A pair of jacks or better
A pair of jacks or better: until someone could open with jacks the pot kept growing, and 'hit the jackpot' later came to mean any big success.
Q 29Who organised the first World Series of Poker in 1970 at his Horseshoe casino?
Benny Binion
Benny Binion: he invited top players to his Horseshoe in 1970, and they voted Johnny Moss the first world champion.
Q 30Which amateur's 2003 World Series of Poker win, after qualifying online for $86, set off the poker boom?
Chris Moneymaker
Chris Moneymaker: after his win, Main Event entries grew from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 by 2006.