America's First 'Casino' Found in Utah Cave

Long before Las Vegas, people were apparently gambling in what might be America's first casino - a cave on the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake.

Archaeologists exploring the site, known simply as Cave 1, have unearthed hundreds of carved sticks, hoops, dice and darts dating back to about 700 years ago. They believe there could be up to 10,000 gambling pieces in the cave.

According to John "Jack" Ives, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta who has been researching the cave for years, at least two or three forms of dice games were played.

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Other entertainments included the hoop and dart game, consisting in throwing a dart through a hoop to score different points, and a stick game, in which a marked stick was hidden among others.

"Also, we found bone hand game pieces. Contestants had to guess in which hand a marked bone object had been concealed," Ives told Discovery News.

The cave was used as a social space to an obscure culture known as the Promontory that lived along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in the 13th century.

"The wide distribution and variety of games in the cave affirm that we are looking at a migrating Apachean population," Ives said.

He believes the Promontory people migrated into the area after a long journey from their native land in the Canadian Subarctic.

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The cave was first excavated in the 1930s by Julian Steward from the University of Utah, but not until recently its importance was fully understood.

Ives and colleagues at Brigham Young University are now studying the gambling artifacts in relation with other objects unearthed in the cave in previous excavations. These included pilies of butchered bison, elk bones and hundreds of animal-skin moccasins ranging from a small child's size to an adult's.

"Because there are so many moccasins in the caves, and because this became an important game for Apache and Navajo people, it possible the moccasin game was played in Cave 1," Ives said.

The game consisted of guessing where an object was concealed in one of four or eight moccasins.

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The cave was intensively occupied between 1240 and 1290 A.D., a time when the Promontory people was thriving and other cultures, like the nearby Fremont, were struggling to survive.

"In North America, the 13th century saw perhaps unprecedented turmoil, brought about by complex environmental and social factors, one of them apparently being a severe drought in the last quarter of the 13th century," Ives told Westerndigs.org.

"But the Promontory Culture cave inhabitants were well clothed and well fed. As nearly as we can tell, surrounding Fremont populations were not doing well and were likely to be disintegrating," he added.

Ives and colleagues believe gaming was in Cave 1 is was a luxury for people who had time and resources to spend for such a form of entertainment.

Most of the game pieces unearthed are dice, made from split pieces of cane, with cut or burned lines on one side and the other side plain.

The majority were found near the entrance of the cave around a large central hearth. According to Ives, they were typically played by women for low stakes.

"At Promontory women did a great deal of work. It does seem likely that the fun and excitement of games played could break up the monotony of that work," he said.

But gambling wasn't just a matter of recreational, low stakes play by the fire. In certain cases, it involved higher stakes and physical activity between men of different social groups.

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Indeed, a hoop made of juniper bark unearthed in the cave may be evidence for more physical competitions.

The game of skill involved two contestants. As the hoop was rolled on the ground, the players chased it, trying to pass their arrows or darts through the center of the hoop.

"A range of gaming activities was played in the cave, from domestic play more for fun through to darker and much higher stakes intersocial contests, in which men, women and children could be even gambled into slavery," Ives said.

Despite its risks, gambling might have been one of the Promontory's keys to success.

"Gaming was important in forging new social relationships, including cases where it is very likely that the participants could not speak each other's languages," Ives said.

Image: These gaming pieces were used in dice and guessing games. Credit: John Ives.

Archaeologists exploring this cave on the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake have unearthed hundreds of carved sticks, hoops, dice and darts dating back to about 700 years ago. They believe there could be up to 10,000 gambling pieces in the cave, making the site, known simply as Cave 1, America's first "casino." See Full Article:

America's First 'Casino' Found in Utah Cave

At least two or three forms of dice games were played in the cave. Dice were made from split pieces of cane, with cut or burned lines on one side and the other side plain. The majority were found near the entrance of the cave around a large central hearth. It is believed dice were typically played by women for low stakes.

The cave was used as a social space to an obscure culture known as the Promontory that lived along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in the 13th century. Previous excavations have unearthed piles of butchered bison, elk bones and hundreds of animal-skin moccasins ranging from a small child's size to an adult's. "Because there are so many moccasins in the caves, and because this became an important game for Apache and Navajo people, it possible the moccasin game was played in Cave 1," John Ives, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta who has been researching the cave for years, told Discovery News. The game consisted of guessing where an object was concealed in one of four or eight moccasins.

Gambling wasn't just a matter of low stakes play by the fire. In certain cases, it involved higher stakes and physical activity between men of different social groups. A hoop made of juniper bark unearthed in the cave may be evidence for more physical competitions. The game of skill involved two contestants. As the hoop was rolled on the ground, the players chased it, trying to pass their arrows or darts through the centre of the hoop. "A range of gaming activities was played in the cave, from domestic play more for fun through to darker and much higher stakes intersocial contests, in which men, women and children could be even gambled into slavery," Ives said.