San Francisco

Did you know that some of the biggest poker games ever played took place in San Francisco? The city was hopping in the years after the gold rush in the mid-nineteenth century and several private poker rooms were opened. At least 10 of the richest men in the west regularly took their seats to do battle for huge pots of money. Among them James C Flood, the owner of the Big Bonanza mine in Nevada as well as four state senators all of whom made their fortunes buying and selling stock in mines. Between them they probably played for the highest stakes in history with the average jackpots coming in at $50,000 with many often reaching $100,000 - the equivalent to several million dollars these days!

Cincinnati

Did you know that before the American Civil war, poker was the biggest game in Cincinnati where almost every saloon in town had a poker room? However, many of these rooms were run by dodgy river-boat gamblers! The biggest games were played at the Burnet House which was famed for its rich décor first class service so much so that it was named ‘the best hotel in the world' by a London Newspaper. This may be true but so too is the fact that the hotel was renowned for the number of crooked gamblers it housed!

Atlantic City

Amazingly enough, up to 1976, the only place you could play casino poker in America was in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was at this time that the state of New Jersey decided to renovate a run down section on the coast and Atlantic City, as we know it today, was re-born. By 1985 the area was bringing in over $2bn in revenue from the 10 huge casinos that had been built. For nearly 10 years the Slots ruled in Atlantic City but, like all good things, the novelty came to an end and many casinos went bust leaving the big guys like Donald Trump and Steve Wynn to battle it out over what has become the east coast's Vegas.

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