By the eighteenth century, the game was popular among the clergy and was looked upon as a morally uplifting pastime. At those time online casino gambling is not available. In 1743, Edmond Hoyle published his Thesis on Backgammon, putting the rules into their modern form. The game soon reached as shown by the expense accounts of Thomas Jefferson for June 1776.

With time, Backgammon lost its popularity amongst the Victorians. Nevertheless, it was popular in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions. It is presumed that at some time during the 1920s the doubling cube was added to the game. This made the game much faster, introduced an element of risk, and required players to revise their strategies and game plans.

At the time of the great depression, the popularity of the game decreased. In the 1940's, the game started to become popular again. During the Second World War, Backgammon again receded into the background. It became immensely popular in the 1960's when Prince Alexis Obelensky promoted Backgammon games and the first Official World Championships in the Bahamas. This tournament continues to be the most important tournament for any Backgammon player.

The game became so popular in the twentieth century that club and tournament casino games were played. It has remained popular ever since with many computer programs for either solo or two player games.

Advent Of Internet Backgammon

During the 1980's, there was a slump again in the popularity of Backgammon due to the distraction of video games. Then Gerald Tesauro of IBM wrote software on how to play Backgammon using neural networking. Andreas Schneider developed the first Internet Backgammon server in 1993. Frederic Dahl of Norway developed the first commercial neural net Backgammon software with Jellyfish. This program could assign equity values to a position and rollout markings that were new for the times. Later, a Backgammon forum appeared at the website rec.games.backgammon.  Backgammon software is even available under an Open Source license with GNU Backgammon. However because most of the casino games are available for online gambling, this game has loose some attraction.