Bar game history
Every game on your bar menu has a story. Some started in medieval England, some in 19th-century rural America, some in a British pub on a slow Tuesday night. These are those stories.
Darts
How a medieval pastime became a televised world championship — and why the number layout on your dartboard is the work of one carpenter in 1896.
Read the history →
Cornhole
Ohio says they invented it. Wisconsin disagrees. German immigrants may have had something to do with it. The real story of how cornhole went from rural pastime to tailgate staple to bar league staple.
Read the history →
Billiards & Pool
A French lawn game that moved indoors in the 15th century, picked up by royalty, and eventually landed in every dive bar in America — with a detour through horse-racing betting pools along the way.
Read the history →
Pub Trivia
British pub culture in the 1970s gave us the pub quiz. By the 1990s it had crossed the Atlantic. The story of how a low-tech night out became one of the most reliably profitable bar events on the calendar.
Read the history →
Shuffleboard
Henry VIII banned it. Tudor tavern-keepers kept running it anyway. How a 15th-century English pastime eventually ended up as a table in your bar's back room.
Read the history →
Also useful
We maintain a resource page that links directly to official rules from the governing bodies — no paraphrasing, just the real sources.
Official bar game rules →