LARAMIE -- The current controversies over barroom poker and electronic bingo are nothing new. Wyoming has had gambling and gambling legislation since before the state began.

You could say that Wyoming was settled on a gamble. Pioneers sold everything before coming to the unknown West, speculators laid out towns in sagebrush, miners dreamed of striking it rich, and farmers and ranchers won and lost fortunes due to drought or harsh winters.

Wyoming has a culture of informal gambling.

"People play poker with friends all over the state," former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson said. "All the Simpsons have been known to occasionally step up to the craps or the blackjack table."

During territorial times and early statehood, gambling was widely accepted as entertainment.

"Gambling is an inherent attribute of the human heart. Show me the man who will not gamble in some way, and I will show you an imbecile," Crook County Rep. Tom Hooper said in 1888.

Popular forms of gambling were poker, keno, faro, wheel of fortune, roulette and dice. People also bet on boxing matches, foot races and horse races.

On September 24, 1867, the Cheyenne Leader reported that 100 men gathered in the street to bet on a dog fight.

In 1869, the first territorial legislators hesitated to outlaw gambling because of the possible economic side-effects. Saloon keepers and many others feared that the transient, mostly male population would skip their towns if gambling was not provided. They also worried that the lack of gambling would slow immigration and, thus, statehood. They applied pressure to halt anti-gambling legislation.

This battle ended in a compromise. Over territorial Gov. John Campbell's veto, the legislators voted to license gambling houses. Campbell wanted it to be a criminal offense.

Lottery scandal

Throughout history, lotteries have been an acceptable way to raise money for building projects. The 13 original colonies used lotteries to raise revenue and to establish colleges, churches, libraries and hospitals. The Civil War and, to a lesser extent, the Revolutionary War were financed by lotteries. But lotteries turned into swindles in the 1800s.

"Lottery King" James Pattee set up fraudulent lotteries in at least four states before he moved to Laramie and established the nationwide Wyoming Lottery in 1875. He made $7 million in the first year alone by advertising in the New York Herald. After two years, he moved to Canada, but he apparently got away with it.

As a consequence, Wyoming outlawed lotteries in 1879, as did most states did by 1900.

Changing times

In Wyoming, the debate over legalized gambling continued. The Sons of Temperance, the Women's Christian Temperance League and the children's "Bands of Hope" groups lobbied against pro-gambling businessmen, with limited success. Throughout the 1870s and 80s, saloons and gambling houses were ordered closed on Sundays and on Election Day, reopened, and then ordered closed again. Casper, however, kept its saloons open on Sundays until 1911.

"The greatest hiatus existed between the late arrivals from the east, called dudes by the natives, with their pious frowning upon frontier ways," wrote James Hook, editor of the Cody Enterprise.

The pro-gambling interests won out, for the most part. In 1874, $20,000 changed hands in a horse race between a Carbon horse and a Laramie mare. In 1888, Douglas had six Monte (poker) games.

"Whole herds of cattle, complete ranches, changed hands at the flip of a hole card," wrote John Thompson in his "In Old Wyoming" column.

But even the Wyoming Stock Growers Association saw the times changing. In 1885, the group adopted a resolution outlawing gambling during roundups.

Gambling was finally outlawed in Wyoming in 1901.

The law was hardly enforced, however. Only five of the 13 counties reportedly enforced it in 1905, and gambling continued pretty much as before.

In an attempt to get tough, the 1921 Legislature passed a law for the "abatement" of any building or property used for gambling or prostitution. In other words, the offending items were declared a nuisance, confiscated and sold.

Once again, in 1923, legislators tried to get tough. Gov. Robert Carey told the Legislature: "Folks have grown indifferent -- too many have laughed over violations. It is breeding contempt for all laws."

Legislators granted his request for the power to remove officials in counties "where open and continuous violations of any law of the State of Wyoming occur."

In the two years before his death, Carey used this power on a county sheriff and a county attorney.

Almost like Nevada

In general, the legal fortunes of gambling ebb and flow with the state of the economy. When times are tough, gambling initiatives prosper.

For example, during the Great Depression, a number of gambling proposals were brought before state legislatures. Full gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931.

"In 1935, Wyoming almost became a Nevada," said Phil Roberts, historian and author of a recent Wyoming Law Review article on the subject.

This bill legalizing full casino gambling passed both houses on the last day of the legislative session, only to be vetoed by Gov. Leslie Miller.

By the next session, the political and economic climate had shifted. Gambling became less of an issue in Wyoming, either because people gambled less or because it went underground.

The modern era

Gambling has made small inroads since 1967, when the legislature passed a local-option pari-mutuel betting bill, which Gov. Stan Hathaway signed into law. The law licensed betting on horse racing and established the Wyoming Pari-mutuel Commission, which regulates this type of gambling.

The law has since been amended to include simulcast betting, which was signed in 2003 by Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

The 1970s brought the legalization of "social gambling," such as bingo for charitable and nonprofit organizations.

In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in response to court cases in Florida and California. Nationwide, Indian casinos have been largely successful and have been called "the new buffalo."

This act did not affect Wyoming until about 2000, when the Northern Arapaho Tribe proposed casino

gambling on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Gov. Jim Geringer opposed the measure, as does Gov.

Dave Freudenthal, but recent court rulings have favored the tribe in its efforts.

Recently, Wyoming people seem content to limit gambling in the state to social events, despite the

economic benefit forecast by supporters. Since the 1970s, ballot initiatives and bills have been introduced for everything from multistate lotteries to full casino gambling (in 1994), but none have passed.

"Full casino gambling doesn't do a thing for society," Alan Simpson said. "It is a mistake, and it appeals to the weakest parts of society."