What was the first casino?
The Ridotto, opened by the Venetian city council in 1638 in a wing of the Palazzo Dandolo, is the first government-sanctioned public gambling house and is what people mean by the first casino. Gambling itself is far older; what began in 1638 is the licensed venue. The state opened it for the reason states usually give, which is that people were already gambling in back rooms and on street corners and the government preferred it somewhere it could watch and tax. It ran for 136 years and the same government closed it in 1774, on the grounds that it was ruining the Venetian nobility. Players had to wear masks, and the stakes were set high enough that ordinary Venetians were priced out by design.
A government opened the first casino, and the same government shut it 136 years later for working too well.
The evidence
| Event | Year | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Ridotto opens | 1638 | Opened by the Venetian city council in a wing of the Palazzo Dandolo, during carnival season. |
| Ridotto closes | 1774 | Closed by the Venetian government to curb gambling among the nobility. |
How we know
The claim needs its qualifier to be true. Gambling houses existed long before 1638 across China, Rome and medieval Europe, and Venice itself had unlicensed private rooms. What is specific to the Ridotto is that it was PUBLIC and STATE-SANCTIONED, which is the thing a modern casino is. Anyone who tells you the first casino was in 1638 without that qualifier is stating something false about gambling and something true about licensing. The mask rule is usually retold as Venetian theatre. It was closer to the opposite of anonymity for the house: everyone was masked, so nobody could be seen to be losing, which kept the aristocracy at the tables.