From the time San Jose was founded by the Spanish in 1777 as California's first civilian settlement, the city has had its share of risk-taking in one way or another. San Jose began as a small settlement of farmers who produced food for the presidios in San Francisco and Monterey. In their free time, the farmers enjoyed a few games of cards despite the strict rules of the Spanish military. Present-day San Jose has become filled with high-tech engineers risking everything to develop the next successful start-up company. San Jose had a lot of gambling between these times--from the illegal speakeasy-type clubs that featured games such as dice, fan-tan, roulette, Chinese lotteries, and, of course, slot machines to the small legal card clubs consisting of one to ten tables filled with people playing games such as pan, lowball, and poker, that would eventually become two of Northern California's largest cardrooms, which generate millions of dollars every year.
