Squash is often referred to as the game of the millionaires, but is this really true? Squash is a racket and ball sport that is played in between two individuals in a 4 walled court. I say 4 walled courts because the court is usually encapsulated in a box with a closeable opening for the players to get in and out. The court can be made either inside or the outside, it does not matter where the court is placed, what matters is where it is situated. People often wonder how such sport can be played in a closed environment. So today we are going to be discussing the sport of squash and why it is called the sport of the millionaires.
But before we answer these questions let’s take a look down the memory lane and figure out where this sport originated from and what are its roots.
The History of Squash?
The origins of the game come from the prisons of London in the 18th century, because the grounds where not big enough for regular tennis, the inmates started using the walls as a bounce material and thus started the sport of squash, later in 1830 the boys of the harrow school noticed that the punctured tennis balls which “squashed ” on impact offered more variety to the game and thus the name of the game was set to be squash, soon many other schools started adapting to the idea of the game and started making indoor and outdoor courts. Over the next years, associations where formed which set the standards of the courts and the equipment’s and since then the game has continued to date.
Why Squash Is Considered To Be a Millionaire’s Game?
There are many reasons why squash is considered to be a millionaire’s game, but the most curtail reason is that after the association was formed and the standards were set for the equipment and the courts. The RMS Titanic was the first ship to have a squash court aboard the ship, the court was placed in the first class and there was also a viewing deck for the audience that used it to place bets on players. Today the betting still stands but betters have started to use websites like Bet365 for their betting needs.
Another great reason is that since these courts were of the encapsulated types, constructing them was not so cheap and only the rich and the powerful were able to build these courts to play the game. Since in the past only the rich and the powerful were able to afford and play these games, it is in the minds of the people that squash is the game of millionaires, simply because they are the only ones that were seen to be playing the game in the first place.
The Equipment and the Courts
In the earlier days the equipment that was used in the game where quite similar to tennis, but over the year’s players stared to modify their equipment to enhance their gameplay. They made their rackets shorter and their balls smaller and hollow. The players continue to do that until the association sets standards and the equipment could no longer be changed. The same goes for courts, the courts ranged from big to small until the association set standard for the size of the court that is going to be built since then.
Wrapping It Up
Although the game is quite known for millionaires, it is not necessarily true, many of the world’s best players don’t come from rich families. The games know that and also the betting website like pro-stave.com knows that so they place their bets accordingly to make sure their users always win. Everything written about this article represents only our personal opinions.
