Who Invented Texas Hold’Em? – Where Poker Originated. By Jim James Strategy. When someone pictures the origins of poker, images of dusty saloons and shady gamblers with 6-shooters likely comes to mind. I have been playing Texas Hold’em professionally now for over 10 years and have often wondered who invented this crazy game. Since I have. Although little is known about the invention of Texas hold 'em, the Texas Legislature officially recognizes Robstown, Texas, as the game's birthplace, dating it to the early 1900s. After the game spread throughout Texas, hold 'em was introduced to Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim.

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There is no certainty about where and when the game of Strip Poker originated, some believe it was first played in Brothels of New Orleans in the 19th century. Then it was just a grotesque form of entertainment for young male gamblers who lost all their money but wanted to go on playing.
Therefore, originally the game was missing the element of sexuality which is closely associated with it today.
Since Texas Holdem has not gained popularity until the first half of 20th century, originally Strip Poker was played as a classic 5 card Draw Poker. Where Was Texas Holdem Invented

The 19th century painting on the left depicts an Anderson Cafe which was among the most popular venues in Storyville, the area of New Orleans commonly associated with prostitution and gambling.

Possibly, it is inside this building the game of Strip Poker was played for the first time.
The 'mixed strip poker', where both male and female players are present, originated in England during the Great Depression as a form of erotic entertainment. The game was mostly played in unlicensed casinos, which often also operated as brothels. Still, Draw Poker remained the most common form of the game.
I'd be surprised if it's not the London's Soho where the Mixed Strip Poker was first played.

In the 2nd half of 20th century, Strip Poker started getting recognition in popular culture, including movies, computer games, music videos, and TV shows.

The game made one of it's most notable appearances in the 1979 movie 'The Wanderers', which included an episode where young gangsters are playing strip poker with their girlfriends.
The film about New York's gangland subculture was directed by Philip Kaufman, who was a member of a gang while growing up in Chicago.

With widespread introduction of personal computers in 1980s several versions of Stip Poker computer games were developed for different platforms including Atari, Amiga, PC and Apple.

A screenshot of Artworx Strip Poker II released in 1987. The game was available for Apple, Amiga and PC.

Strip Poker started gaining popularity in mass media with intorduction of more advanced broadcasting techniques, allowing more precise audience targeting. Also, the society became more tolerant to the scenes of mild nudity on TV, which resulted in a number of TV shows featuring Strip Poker appearing in late 90s, and the trend continues today.

Texas Hold'em Vegas World

Strip Poker made it's first appearance on TV in 1999 with the game show called 'Strip Poker' aired on selected channels in USA.
The show was hosted by Graham Elwood, with Jennifer Cole as the card dealer.
It was based on 'five-card stud' variant of poker with elements of quiz game.

This was followed by game show Räsypokka aired on the SubTV network in Finland from 2001 to 2003. There were 2 male and 2 female players in each episode, some of them getting fully naked during the game.
Some episodes of the show were filmed in night clubs and bars.

In 2005, a Strip Poker Invitational show was filmed in Las Vegas and aired as Pay-Per-View.
Directed by Ben Weinstein, it was hosted by Carmen Electra, among players were Playboy models Heather Carolin, Tracy Dali, Felicia Tang, and Aimee Sweet.
The variant of poker played during the show was Texas Holdem, which was on a peak of popularity following the 2004 WSOP championship.

Then it was was taken to a new level in 2006, once again in England: the worlds largest Strip Poker tournament took place in Café Royal in London on 19 of August that year. The event was organized by Paddy Power Entertainment Ltd (Ireland), and involved 196 participants playing no limits hold'em in a bid to win £10,000.

Texas Hold’em is the most popular poker variant played today, but that hasn’t always been the case. Games such as draw and stud once dominated card rooms of Las Vegas and beyond until Hold’em rose to prominence in the 1960s.

Little is known about the exact time hold’em was invented, although Texas State Legislature officially recognises Robstown, Texas as the game’s birthplace, hence the game being formally known as Texas hold’em poker.

Poker wasn’t always a mainstream activity and games were often held privately. Poker games were often dangerous places hosted by unscrupulous people and as such gamblers used to travel in groups rather than alone. The legend that is Doyle Brunson once said that winning money in these games was the easy part, it was getting out of town with your winnings that presented the biggest problem.

Brunson was part of a group of travelling gamblers who introduced hold’em to Las Vegas. Brunson, along with Amarillo Slim, Crandell Addington, and others, began to play hold’em regularly in Las Vegas in 1967.

For many years, anyone wanting to play hold’em had to head to the Golden Nugget Casino located in Downtown Las Vegas as it was the only venue spreading the game. Due to its location and décor – it had oiled sawdust covering the floors – the Golden Nugget’s poker room wasn’t high on the list for rich players wanting to play this new game so the professional players looked for a more prominent location to play hold’em.

They finally settled on the Dunes Hotel and Casino – it was demolished in 1993 and the Bellagio now stands in its place – on the world famous Las Vegas Strip. The moved proved to be a successful one as inexperienced hold’em players lined the professional’s pockets, and the game’s popularity grew.

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Texas Hold’em at the WSOP

A gambler called Tom Moore established the “Gambling Fraternity Convention” and added poker tournaments, including hold’em, to the Second Annual Gambling Fraternity Convention in 1969. Benny and Jack Binion bought the rights to the convention and renamed it the World Series of Poker, before moving to their own casino, Binion’s Horseshoe.

During the World Series of Poker’s second year, Texas hold’em was played as the Main Event and drew only eight players, a far cry from the several thousand that compete in it each summer in Las Vegas.

Hold’em popularity continued growing in the 1980s when California’s legal card rooms began spreading the game, and received a further boost when Irish bookmakers Terry Rogers and Liam Flood saw the game in the early 1980s and they introduced it to Europe when they returned home, later creating the Irish Poker Open, the second-longest running tournament in the world behind the World Series of Poker Main Event.

The game continued to gain fans during the 2000s and thanks in part to the invention of the “hole card cam” which allowed people watching footage at home to see the cards the players held and how they were playing. Then in 2003, the aptly named Chris Moneymaker won a $38 buy-in satellite online. His prize was a seat in the WSOP Main Event, which he went on to win for $2.5 million. Then an accountant, Moneymaker became an inspiration for thousands of budding poker players because there he was, an everyday man taking on the professionals at their own game, in their own backyard, and walking away with the life-changing top prize.

Moneymaker beat a field of 839 in 2003, a figure that rose to 2,576 in 2004 when patent attorney Greg Raymer won the title. By 2015, the field grew to 5,619 before hitting an all-time high of 8,773 entrants in 2006 when Jamie Gold won the $12 million first place prize. While those dizzy heights have never been reached since, the WSOP Main Event’s attendance hasn’t fallen to less than 6,352 entrants since Gold’s amazing win.

Online poker

The first real-money online poker site popped up in 1998. Planet Poker was followed three years later by partypoker in 2001, making us one of the original online poker sites – has it really been 15 years?

So there you have it, an insight into the history of the amazing game that is Texas hold’em, a game that partypoker ambassador Mike Sexton once said “takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master.” We hear you, Mike.

Where Was Texas Holdem Invented

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