History. Gambling dates back at least to the Paleolithic period, before written history. In Mesopotamia the earliest six-sided dice date to about 3000 BCE. However, they were based on astragali dating back thousands of years earlier.

The earliest known use of the noun bookmaker is in the Middle English period (1150 1500). OED's earliest evidence for bookmaker is from 1293. bookmaker is formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: book n., maker n.