“The most bewitching Game”

For colonists living on the seventeenth-century frontier, drinking, gaming, and other forms of entertainment often went hand-in-hand. Games involving dice, cards, tables, and gaming pieces could be found at most ordinaries. Outdoor entertainment, such as horse racing, bowling, and animal blood sport, were also popular attractions. This chapter surveys the documentary and archaeological evidence for seventeenth-century gaming in St. Mary’s City with a focus on the site’s proliferation of ordinaries. Of particularly emphasis is an oval-shaped animal baiting ring discovered at the Leonard Calvert House site, a property that was home to Maryland’s first governor and later served as the colony’s first statehouse and largest ordinary.