Giulian novel Stories –

The term “Casino” is of Italian origin, the root word being “Casa” (house) and originally meant a small country villa, summerhouse or pavilion. The word changed to refer to a building built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. Such buildings were used to host civic town functions – including dancing, music listening and gambling. Not all casinos were used for gaming. The Copenhagen Casino was a theatre, known for the use made of its hall for mass public meetings during the 1848 Revolution which made Denmark a constitutional monarchy. Until 1937 it was a well-known Danish theatre.

The Hanko Casino located in Hanko, Finland – one of that town’s most conspicuous landmarks – was never used for gambling. Rather, it was a banquet hall for the Russian nobility which frequented this spa resort in the late 1800s, and is presently used as a restaurant. The Chinese recorded the first official account of the practice in 2300 B.C., but it is generally believed that activity of gambling, in some way or another, has been seen in almost every society in history. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Napoleon’s France and Elizabethan England, much of history is filled with stories of entertainment based on the games of chance. One of the first known casinos was the Casinò di Venezia, established in Venice Italy around 1638 and is still in operation.