Many of the most popular games we know today were actually invented in the United States, before going on to achieve worldwide popularity and fame. But as times and technologies evolve, many of the classic board and card games faced the prospect of becoming obsolete.

Thankfully, some have reinvigorated themselves over the last couple of decades, enjoying an entirely new lease of life within the online gaming sphere, adapted to sate our thirst for playing via desktop and mobile devices across the internet. Having successfully made the transition to digital realms of entertainment, these are three of the most popular. 

Monopoly

The original concept of Monopoly was invented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie, although intriguingly, her game was designed around promoting the single tax concept of economist Henry George. Not without some irony, her game aimed at highlighting the disadvantages of monopolies, whenever they pushed rival players into bankruptcy.

But rivalry and competition are firmly part of the capitalist culture, upon which the ‘American Dream’ was built. For this reason, when Charles Darrow patented his own Monopoly version in 1933. Parker Brothers initially rejected the idea, although by 1935 they began mass-marketing the game which is now owned by Hasbro, and arguably the most successful board game in the world.

Incredibly, now that Monopoly has embraced the Digital Age, there are now versions themed around everything we could possibly imagine. These include special editions for casinos in Las Vegas, iconic American brands like Coca Cola, and even one for online gaming hit Fortnite.

Scrabble

Alfred Mosher Butts is credited with the invention of Scrabble in 1938, inspired by his own earlier Lexiko word game creation. This new game was originally named Criss-Crosswords, before James Brunot bought rights to manufacture the game commercially, offering Butts royalties on every game sold.

Brunot also renamed the game to Scrabble, which actually means to “to scratch frantically” and is a real dictionary word. After gaining initial success via sales at iconic New York store Macy’s in 1952. Now the rights are owned by Hasbro and Scrabble remains eternally popular.

The simplicity of Scrabble quickly lent itself to being played over the internet, which led to the Internet Scrabble Club first being launched in 2001, while the most popular interface is that which uses American English. 

Poker

Academics claim the game bears an uncanny resemblance to As-Nas, first played by Persians more than 500 years ago, the fact remains that poker was certainly an American invention. Originally, poker became popular on gambling river boats that sailed the Mississippi River, during the early 1800s, before spreading rapidly to saloons around the whole country.

Increasingly more variants appeared over the next hundred years, including seven-card stud and Texas hold ‘em, while casinos enhanced the popularity of poker even further. Heading into the digital age, the increasing number of Legal US Poker Sites has begun attracting a new generation of players, largely due to the relaxing of laws for online gambling by many state legislatures.

Remarkably, while poker was being enjoyed online around much of the world, only recent changes to gambling laws made it possible for poker to return home, so to speak, enabling millions of Americans to join the fun legally and safely via internet gaming sites.