Sample Resources for Gaming/Game Rooms

Antique Jukeboxes, Pinball Machines and More
From gameroomantiques.com comes this web page detailing the history of jukeboxes. It discusses the earliest coin operated machines in the early 1900's, but notes that the jukebox as we know it was not perfected until the 1930's, when a selection mechanism was introduced, allowing people to choose the songs they wanted to hear. It discusses the early jukeboxes with an eye toward collectors, as indeed this entire site is geared towards collectors of antique games and arcade machines. There are links to all the antique collectables available on the site, including jukeboxes, slot machines, pinball machines, gum machines, arcade items and games, soda machines, vending, penny drops, stamp machines, and more.

Pool Table Lighting
Wherever the pool table is placed, bar, restaurant, pool hall, private games room for example, accessories add to the class and elegance of the chosen design. Pool table lights are the most common accessory and are usually suspended about three feet above the playing surface. The lights can be one, two, three or four across and they hang from the ceiling by a chain or bar to add light to the playing surface. Pool lights are available in many different varieties, and again, the design chosen will depend on the style of pool table on display. The lights usually consist of a normal light bulb that is surrounded in a form of shade. The shades can be the same for each of the lights, or different for each one. The light shades are available in a variety of colors, the most popular selections being green or white. The shades can be made out of acrylic, chrome, sterling solid brass, ornate glass, aluminum, and many other metals.

The History of Roulette
The term "Roulette" is derived from a French word meaning small wheel. The origin of Roulette is not very clear. While some sources state that Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century French mathematician invented the roulette wheel, other sources state that the game originated in China and was brought to Europe by Dominican monks who were trading with the Chinese. However, the single "0" modification was rejected in America and the two zeros "00" where returned to the Roulette wheel. The Roulette wheel gained a great deal of popularity in America during the California Gold Rush. Site also includes roulette playing information, types of roulette, a table layout, a roulette glossary, live roulette and roulette news.

Poker Origins
There seem to be differences of opinion on the origin of Poker. Moreover, there seems to be no clear or direct early ancestor of the game. It is more likely that Poker derived its present day form from elements of many different games. The consensus is that because of it's basic principle, its birth is a very old one. Jonathan H. Green makes one of the earliest written references to Poker in 1834. In his writing, Green mentions rules to what he called the "cheating game," which was then being played on Mississippi riverboats. He soon realized that his was the first such reference to the game, and since it was not mentioned in the current American Hoyle, he chose to call the game Poker. Yet another possible explanation for the word poker, is that it came from a version of an underworld slang word, poke, a term used by pickpockets. Cardsharps who used the 20-card cheating game to relieve a sucker from his poke may have used that word among themselves, adding an “r” to make it “poker.”

See GameRoomResources.com for many more resources on this topic.

Or view resources on the related topic of tables games, e.g., foosball, table tennis, more.

 

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