Tombola cages, manual dice shakers, Mahjong Baccarat are among many types of equipment used for games popular in the good old days are currently on display at the Macau Gaming History Gallery.
The gallery, located at Hotel Lisboa’s Crystal Palace hall, is curated by gaming operator SJM and showcases the history of gaming in Macau.
The exhibit traces Macau’s gaming history back to the 16th century, with a betting slip showing the name of the candidates who passed the civil service examination during the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912). In 1905, such imperial examinations were stopped, and so that sort of lottery changed into betting on company names, then to what remains today as “pacapio”, which is a transliteration of the Chinese “white dove ticket”, as in the old days, people bet on pigeon racing, based on the concept of messenger pigeons. There is no more pigeon racing today, but the game still exists in Macau in the form of “keno”.
An SJM staff demonstrates the manual dice shaker is used for the Sic Bo game
