Exam 7: Other Jurisdictions - Riverboat Gambling

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During the first days of riverboat travel, professional gamblers were rarely tolerated. If their occupation was discovered, many captains saw fit to put them ashore at the first opportunity. Later, by the 1830's, the gamblers began to be recognized as "frequent" travelers, similar to frequent business travelers we see today, and a different opinion of them began to emerge. Gamblers on some boats were treated almost as crewmembers. They became so integrated with the movement of riverboat travel that some captains went so far as to claim it would be bad luck to sail without a gambler aboard. That point of view might be looked at with some skepticism since it had become the practice by this time for gamblers to give captains and even some of the crew a piece of the action. In effect, most gamblers looked upon this payoff to the captains and crew as simply a type of license fee to operate on their boats.

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The game of poker itself was originally known by the French name of Poque. The pronunciation is just like "poker"without the "r", and the sound and spelling is thought to have become corrupted by the unique accent of Southerners. The game was quite different from what we know poker to be today. First, it was played with only 20 cards. The deck had 10's, jacks, queens, kings and aces only. There were no 2 through 9's in the deck and there was no drawing of additional cards. Second, the most that could play the game at any one time were four players. Lastly, they were dealt five cards each and then bet, raised and bluffed with only the cards they were originally given. Bluffing, and betting high stakes while holding poor cards to deceive opponents, was considered an integral part of the game.