Archaeologists discover 800-year-old 'casino' in Utah

Archaeologists are betting that their latest discovery in the caves of Utah's Great Salt Lake indicates the presence of what may have been America's first casino.

"It's apparent that people were playing a lot of games," said Jack Ives, a professor of Northern Plains Archaeology at the University of Alberta in Canada. In addition to discovering a lot of dice, the researchers "found bone pieces from hand games, a ball, a number of hoops, pieces that look like counters, [and] stick games." Ives and his team think these estimated 17,000 game pieces date back to the 13th century.

The discovery of several different varieties of dice tipped the archaeologists off to the site's larger significance. "This is one community that knows all these different versions of dice games," researcher Gabriel Yanicki said. "If you read the accounts, 70 or 80 percent of dice games were for women only. So what do we have here? Women who knew the games of other women. Women who are part of different communities."

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Gambling, the archaeologists say, was likely a "relationship-building mechanism" for these communities that eventually led to tribal interactions and "long-term coalescences of groups."

"It's not one story, but many stories about an extraordinary relationship among people," Ives said of the findings.

The uncovered artifacts are being preserved at the Natural History Museum of Utah.