For as long as sports have existed, humans have sought to gamble on them.
"As far back as 4000 to 3000 BC, ancient Egyptians bet on dice, board games, and feats of skill, such as chariot racing and fencing," an excerpt from a 2025 textbook entitled The Business of Sports Betting reads. In early modern Europe as in our own time, betting was big business, and the practice boarded the ships west to the Americas.
