The history of solitaire and Klondike Solitaire can be a bit mysterious. It has its roots in fortune telling in the Baltic Regions or as a card game invented by French prisoners in the Bastille in the 17th century. However, as it made its way through Europe and eventually into the United States, it continued being one of the most well-loved card games out there.
The gambling roots of Klondike Solitaire in the United States
Through all the iterations of Solitaire, we eventually fast forward to the turn of the century in 1899. This is when one of the most successful gamblers and resort owners, Richard Canfield, took the game and used a version known as Klondike to include in his gambling houses. He placed this game in his most famous location, the Old Saratoga Club, which was in Saratoga Springs, New York. Because this version of the game, in gambling format, was quite hard to beat, the odds were quite generous for those that wanted to take their chances.
It took the name Klondike Solitaire due to a reference to the Klondike Gold mine rush. This was to get people excited to play it as a popular parlor and gambling game. Since then, the name has had a reduction to just Solitaire, but it has continued to become one of the most popular games.
How boredom led to a resurgence in the game
We move nearly a hundred years forward, where Solitaire remained a popular analog game to play but eventually hit the digital stage. In 1988 it’s famously known that an intern programmed Solitaire with Windows. He did this as he was bored and wanted something more interesting to work on. This original version came with a specialized boss key that many of us wish we could have today. Once hit, it would simply change the screen to an Excel sheet. This made it look like you were working for your boss. This is brilliant and should still be a requested feature to this day.
By 1990 it got the attention of the CEO, Bill Gates. He decided to include it with their launch of Windows 3.0 free of charge. It was digital gamification to help as a tutorial and guide for people to train themselves with how the mouse would work. This was a better option than having a guide or manual on operating the mouse, which would become a staple accessory in modern-day computing.
Where is Solitaire now?
Klondike Solitaire, as well as many different versions, continues to be a popular game for anyone with a computer. Microsoft states that over 20 billion games are played annually, with what they are able to track. Also, they still, to this day, always offer Solitaire free of charge and pre-installed. They also proudly put the founding year as 1990, which you can still see today. It still helps keep millions entertained and is still one of the most complex games. It’s easy to pick up the standard game version and understand it, but it can get quite complex down the line.