The original Bitcoin code included functions related to playing Poker

Specifically just GUI code. Seems the code was just copy-pasted from the wxWidgets GUI code for a Poker Lobby Dialog:

CPokerLobbyDialogBase::CPokerLobbyDialogBase(wxWindow* parent, wxWindowID id, const wxString& title, const wxPoint& pos, const wxSize& size, long style) : wxFrame(parent, id, title, pos, size, style)

All the Poker references are in lines 1573 to 1731 (https://github.com/trottier/original-bitcoin/blob/master/src...).

This is GUI code present in the very first commit https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/4405b78d6059e536c3... just to be removed few days and commits later: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/85c33b960211722e21...

Many game devs loved Bitcoin when it first came out, because they had a proper currency they could use in their games instead of something made in-house.

Look at line 1573 for example or search for "poker".

I always thought it was strange when people try to argue crypto has no utility and it’s value is purely speculative. I can’t imagine a future in which online gambling isn’t fueled predominantly by crypto.

It makes sense. The big crackdown on online poker hit in 2011 but it was easy to see coming. Replacing money with crypto in gambling applications would have been a decent idea for driving early adoption.