NetGammon: The French Backgammon Server
NetGammon was one of the earliest graphical backgammon servers on the Internet, active by September 1996 and rooted in a distinctly French online community. Over nearly three decades of quiet operation it moved from a free service hosted by a Lille ISP to a paid-membership site, weathered a bruising public cheating controversy, and — through its original programmer — became an unlikely ancestor of eXtreme Gammon, the strongest backgammon engine in use today.
| Platform | Active years | Founder/Owner | Model | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NetGammon | By September 1996 – c. 2024–2026 (closure undocumented) | Not publicly documented; early programmer Xavier Dufaure de Citres | Free at launch; later paid memberships | Defunct; domain no longer resolves as of mid-2026 |
1. Origins at nordnet.fr
NetGammon was demonstrably active by September 1996, when it was discussed in rec.games.backgammon as a French server hosted at nordnet.fr, the domain of NordNet, an Internet service provider based in Lille. At that time the service was free. Unlike FIBS, which any telnet client could reach, NetGammon required its own proprietary Windows client — there was no telnet or browser login. This all-in-one graphical approach placed it in the same design lineage as the commercial servers that followed, including the original GamesGrid, rather than the open-protocol tradition of FIBS. (The present-day GamesGrid site, relaunched in 2026, is unaffiliated with the 1996–2008 service whose history it documents.)
2. An open question: the 1995 "NetGammon"
A backgammon FAQ circulated in 1995 lists a service called "NetGammon" as having shut down in February 1995 — more than a year before the French server's documented activity. Whether this was an earlier incarnation of the same project or an entirely unrelated program sharing the name is not documented anywhere reliable. The question remains open, and researchers into early online backgammon history should treat the two references with care.
3. The netgammon.com era
The server later moved to its own domain, netgammon.com, and adopted paid memberships. Day-to-day operation combined paid management with volunteer system operators ("sysops"), a hybrid model common among servers of the period. The community remained strongly French and French-Canadian throughout, which gave NetGammon a linguistic identity unusual among the Anglophone-dominated servers of the era.
Ratings used an Elo-style formula of the same family employed by FIBS and GamesGrid. Two policies distinguished NetGammon from stricter rivals: players could reset their rating to 1500 at will, and multiple accounts were permitted. Both choices would later feature prominently in the server's most public controversy.
4. The October 2000 cheating controversy
In October 2000 a Usenet thread titled "Cheating at Netgammon" appeared on rec.games.backgammon. Contributors alleged multi-account rating manipulation and thrown matches, and complained of an inactive head sysop. One volunteer sysop, said to have contributed some 3,500 hours to the server, was reportedly banned after taking the complaints public. All of these claims are allegations made by forum participants; the server's management position was not comprehensively recorded.
A follow-up post in 2013 alleged bot-assisted play on the server — an accusation that, whatever its merit, incidentally demonstrates that NetGammon was still running in 2013, long after most of its 1990s contemporaries had closed. Discussion of computer-assisted cheating and how servers detect it can be found on our bots and AI page.
5. From NetGammon to eXtreme Gammon
NetGammon's most consequential legacy lies in its personnel. The server's programmer, Xavier Dufaure de Citres, left the project and, with Michelle Dufaure de Citres, founded GameSite 2000 Ltd in January 2000. GameSite 2000 built the GammonSite server and then, in June 2009, released eXtreme Gammon (XG) — the neural-network analysis engine that remains the strongest backgammon program in the world and the standard tool for match analysis. The through-line from a mid-1990s French play server to today's dominant backgammon engine is one of the more striking genealogies in the game's online history.
6. A quiet disappearance
No shutdown announcement for NetGammon has been documented. The site was archived alive as recently as May 2024, but as of mid-2026 the domain no longer resolves. The closure window can therefore only be placed between 2024 and 2026, and the circumstances remain unrecorded — a fittingly quiet end for a server that spent most of its long life outside the English-language spotlight. For the broader arc of servers that rose and fell alongside it, see our history of online backgammon.
See Also
- The History of Online Backgammon
- FIBS — the First Internet Backgammon Server
- Backgammon Bots and AI
- Playing Backgammon Online
- GridGammon
Footnotes
- rec.games.backgammon threads, September 1996, documenting NetGammon at nordnet.fr.
- "Cheating at Netgammon", rec.games.backgammon, October 2000, with 2013 follow-up post.
- Damish backgammon FAQ, archived at Backgammon Galore (bkgm.com), listing a "NetGammon" shut down February 1995.
- extremegammon.com "About" page, on GameSite 2000 Ltd and the origins of eXtreme Gammon.
Frequently asked questions about NetGammon
When did NetGammon operate?
It was active by September 1996, initially free and hosted at nordnet.fr, and later ran as a paid service at netgammon.com. No closure was announced; the site was archived alive in May 2024 and the domain had stopped resolving by mid-2026.
Was NetGammon connected to eXtreme Gammon?
Indirectly, yes. NetGammon's programmer Xavier Dufaure de Citres co-founded GameSite 2000 Ltd in January 2000, which built GammonSite and released eXtreme Gammon in June 2009.
Was cheating proven on NetGammon?
No findings were formally documented. An October 2000 Usenet thread alleged rating manipulation and thrown matches, and a 2013 post alleged bot-assisted play; these remain allegations by forum participants.