What was the first board game created?/ What were the stakes of traditional board games? / How did they gain popularity?

by DwelveDeeper

Sorry for loaded question!

Anyway I was playing Aggravation last night with some friends and then I started wondering how board games came to be. I did a google/wikipedia search but didn't come up with too much information.

Also by "stakes" of the game, I mean would people bet on them often, or just play for fun like we do today?

Thank you!

CleanCapitalist

I'm not sure if this is the oldest, but it is one of the oldest. The Ancient Egyptian game of Senet is very ancient, and has existed since pre-dynastic Egypt. As for gambling, people were known to bet on games, though I don't know to much on how frequent this was.