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The mid-90’s were when ‘real’ started…
Article 6
How Online Gambling Used Emerging Web Technologies
A look back at 90’s tech – Java applets, Shockwave, Flash and .ASP.
Who benefited and how?
by Ian Sherrington, February 2025
As part of the series – The Online Gambling Industry
How Online Gambling Used Emerging Web Technologies
In 1998, online casinos and sportsbooks were just about proving their attractiveness to players and operators alike. Their graphics, action, speed and overall reliability seemed ok, but they needed to be downloaded and installed on the user’s PC to play.
We needed instant gratification. That could only be achieved when the browser has the ability to play secure casino games, instantly.
Luckily, the web will develop rapidly. New web technologies will emerge and these will be taken advantage of by casino game developers.
In this article, I’ll take a look at the early web technologies that took away the barriers to online gambling.
And I’ll try not to wander off the subject too far…
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Browser War
The Browser
At this time in 1998, there were two main browsers that were in common use. Netscape Navigator version 4.5 and Microsoft Explorer 4.0. They had the market at about 50/50 but Explorer was on the rise, soon to dominate.
Both offered decent – but quirky – JavaScript. But also, alluringly, a Java Virtual Machine which allowed the browser itself to download and run Java applets without bothering the user.
They looked nice…
Java Applets
Well, that was the theory. Java applets were troublesome to say the least.
Java applets were introduced in 1995 with the release of Java 1.0 by Sun Microsystems. The idea was to allow small Java applications (applets) to run inside a web browser, bringing interactivity and dynamic content to the web at a time when HTML was mostly static. Java applets were embedded in HTML pages using the <applet> tag.
Browsers with a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) could execute the applet within a sandbox (a restricted environment to ensure security). Applets were downloaded from a server and ran inside the browser, offering interactive graphics, games, and web-based applications.
Java applets had compatibility issues, security concerns, they were slow, very tricky to develop and had limited functionality.
Nevertheless, intrepid developers went ahead and started developing some basic games that could be played in the browser using Java applets. Some were successful and some, as did I, regretted it later.
Mahjong – the world’s most played game
Mahjong as a Java Applet
In my case, somehow, the idea of creating an online Mahjong cash game seemed to be a good one. We thought… the world’s most popular game and we put it online… What can possibly go wrong?
Well, at Intertops, we were originally sports betting guys, but had recently ventured into online casinos. We were doing well but still knew nothing. Nevertheless, after a successful US marketing campaign, we were riding a wave.
Yes, it was very possible to market to the US in those days – actually, the marketing at Intertops was top-notch. We employed a top marketing agency, Edelman in New York which was pretty cool – 5th Avenue and all that. Edelman’s campaign included getting the Intertops odds and lines quoted in the US media. For example, our Simon Noble came up with the idea of offering odds on Groundhog Day – will the groundhog see his shadow or not? This ‘news’ was, incredibly, broadcast on every US Breakfast TV show the following morning. I don’t think anyone ever topped that.
And we weren’t stopping there. We had this plan for world domination and wanted to expand our markets. We decided the priority was to create a Chinese version of the Intertops website. Problem was that we knew very little about China and how we could, respectfully, approach the subject.
Delaney’s Hong Kong
So off we went to Hong Kong to immerse ourselves in the local culture. Which we did well. Met many interesting folk and visited some interesting venues.. And, incidentally, we learned to play Mahjong – albeit very badly.
So, on our return and armed with culture, we started on translating the website into Chinese simplified with a new name and colours – Fatchoi something.com. And then Simon had another seemingly brilliant idea. He decided it would be a great idea to develop our own Mahjong game. “It’s incredibly popular” he said. “Played by millions of gamblers”.
Initially, this seemed like a good plan but was not going to be cheap. We worked with a Hong Kong developer and his ever expanding team. He very slowly came to grips with developing a Mahjong game with animated characters using Java applets. At least that was what he appeared to be doing.
It turned out to be an impossible task. It was terrifying to spend so much and receive so little. After a year of work and a lot of dosh, the writing was on the wall. The Java applet became a hugelet and behaved badly – It was hopelessly unreliable and the problems weren’t going away. So we cancelled the project and called it a day. Learn to love your losses and all that.
However, yours truly, not entirely learning his lesson, went on to create Mahjong Mania from the ashes, but that’s another story…
In the end, Java applets became obsolete, replaced by JavaScript, HTML5, and WebGL for interactive web content. Oracle officially deprecated Java applets in 2017, marking the end of their era.
