Gaming - A Bit of NH History

Federalist Style 2.5 story stone building

Rural taverns in New England were the town's social and entertainment centers. The 19th Century taverns that dotted Chesterfield Village, Factory Center, and West Chesterfield were no different. The social interaction at the Stone House Tavern is not known. However, there is no doubt, that as long as its builder Ezekiel Pierce operated the tavern, the strict moral code of the temperance movement was followed. He emphasized this by naming it the "Temperance Lake House". (The movement saw gambling as a vice related to alcohol.) Other Chesterfield taverns owners may not have been so strict, especially the owners on the Connecticut River which served boatmen and loggers. 

Table and card games were very popular tavern entertainment. Checkers and backgammon tables were found frequently in the common rooms of NH taverns. Card games like the old maid (adult version), euchre, cribbage, and whist were popular and generally thought acceptable even for the ladies. On the shady side were Vingt-et-un or 21 (now known as blackjack), three card monte, and dice games like chuck-a-luck and craps. 

Picture: 19th Century Burl Wood Chess, Checker, Backgammon & Domino Card Game Table (sold -www.1stdibs.com)


Faro, a fast-paced betting game, was so popular that it followed the western movement becoming the most played game in western saloons. Now historians refer to it as the Old West Game. (While poker is the game shown in most old western shows and movies, poker didn't become popular in the West until the end of the 1800s.)

Picture:  Men playing Faro in an Arizona Saloon -1895

Anchorage Daily News - 12/10/2023

On November 18, 1776, the Continental Congress enacted a national lottery in four classes, consisting of 100,000 tickets in each class to support the war effort.  It hoped to raise $1,500,000.  However, Continental Currency rapidly lost value and only $100,000 was raised, resulting in a net lost of over $72,000 from the first class alone.

Joseph Boardman placed this advertisement in the Exeter Watchman in 1817.  Between 1756 - 1817 the NH State Archives list 121 different lottery petitions. 

https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/2022/04/07/historically-speaking-playing-lottery-1817/9486717002/

Although initially sanctioned by states to fund public projects, lotteries began to face increasing scrutiny and legal restrictions due to scandals and fraud. By the mid-1840s, they were banned throughout the North, including New Hampshire (1842). However, people in Northern cities continued to purchase tickets for lotteries conducted in other states or abroad. Eventually Congress stepped in, banning the interstate promotion and sale of lottery tickets in 1890, following in 1895, with the prohibition of interstate commerce of lottery tickets.


In New Hampshire the gambling laws have evolved over the years. The Second Great Awakening of the early 19th Century was focused on social reform in response to perceived "moral decay". The result was strong anti-gambling views and subsequent laws which continued well into the early 1900s. The tide started to shift in 1933 with legalization of mutual betting on horse races. Progressive laws and attitudes led to the 1964 NH State Lottery, the first state lottery in the nation. Charitable gaming followed in 1971 and eventually sports betting was legalized n 2019.

In 2024 charitable gaming generated almost 37 million dollars of revenue to local NH charities with an additional 30 million directed to the state’s public schools. In the past, CHS has been one of the non-profits to receive this type of charitable revenue. The funds contributed to the financing of the the Stone House Tavern Museum and the restoration and preservation of significant Chesterfield artifacts.  In 2025, the Chesterfield Historical Society received part of the revenue from the  Reno Casino & Social House in Keene   generated from July 30th - August 8th. #PlayLikeARebel