New Years Celebrations... One More Year!

Remember: Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. - Brooks Atkinson

Did You Know? - While it is suspected gambling has been around since the dawn of human civilization, the earliest definitive evidence that people gambled dates back to approximately 2300 BC. Tiles from this time period that were found in ancient China indicate people in that region engaged in a game of chance that resembled a modern-day lottery thousands of years ago.

Keno slips from around 200 BC suggest lottery proceeds were used to fund various state projects in the area, which may have included the construction of the Great Wall of China. In the United States, lottery proceeds have also been used to fund civic projects over the years, including the founding of Harvard and Yale universities, and this practice continues to this day.

Although gambling has existed for several millennia, the history of some of the world’s most popular games is comparatively shorter. The earliest version of Baccarat was not documented until the 1400s, for instance, and it took centuries after that for the game to evolve into the version that is played today.

Macau is the World’s Biggest Gambling City: Las Vegas is the most active gambling city in the United States, but with revenues of $45.2 billion in 2013, Macau is the biggest gambling center on the face of the globe. In only takes bettors in Macau a single day to bet the same amount of money that is bet over the course of a full week in Las Vegas.

Did You Know? - This phrase evolved through a series of usages and references. The phrase is typically attributed to Milton's 1645 poem L'Allegro, which includes the lines

Com, and trip it as ye go,
On the light fantastick toe.

The imagery of tripping on toes also appears in Shakespeare's The Tempest: "Before you can say come, and goe, / And breathe twice; and cry, so, so: / Each one tripping on his Toe, / Will be here with mop, and mowe."

This expression was popularized in the American song "Sidewalks of New York" (melody and text by Charles B. Lawlor and James W. Blake) in 1894.

Part of the chorus: "Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke / Tripped the light fantastic / On the sidewalks of New York."

Those lyrics were probably inspired by "The Ballet Girl", a song popularized by Tony Pastor at his Bowery "Opera House" in the mid-19th century that had as the chorus: "While she danced on her light fantastic toe, / Round the stage she used to go; / Had it not been for a man named Joe, / She might have belonged to me."

Did You Know? - The Rat Pack is a term used by the media to refer to an informal group of entertainers centered on the Las Vegas casino scene.

Having its origins in a group of friends that met at the Los Angeles home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, by the 1960s, it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group that called itself "the Summit" or "the Clan", featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop among others.

They appeared together on stage and in films in the early 1960s, including the movies Ocean's 11, Sergeants 3, and Robin and the 7 Hoods (in the last film, Bing Crosby replaced Lawford). Sinatra, Martin, and Davis were regarded as the group's lead members.