A History of Playing Cards: A Thousand Years of Fun and Intrigue

Playing cards have a storied history stretching back nearly a thousand years. These versatile pieces of paper have served various purposes, from tools of the occult and magic props to recreational games and gambling.

As they traveled across continents, playing cards adapted to different cultures, often reflecting unique customs. They’ve been outlawed by kings and even had the death penalty attached to unauthorized manufacturing. Here's everything you need to know about the fascinating history of playing cards.

Tracing the Origins: The Mysterious Beginnings of Playing Cards

Pinpointing the exact origin of playing cards is like trying to find the queen of hearts in a deck of 52—tricky, but not impossible. While there’s no consensus, one popular theory suggests they originated in China during the 9th or 10th century. Ancient scrolls mention a game of paper tiles resembling dominoes, possibly early cards.

Thanks to a Tang Dynasty emperor and his concubines, the game spread across China and beyond. A royal pastime that clearly had legs (and hearts and spades).

Another theory points to the Middle East, where the Mamluk dynasty played a game with cards featuring goblets, gold coins, swords, and polo sticks. This deck had ten ranks and three picture cards: king, upper viceroy, and lower viceroy. Some experts believe these cards made their way to Europe via merchants around the 14th century. 

However, other sources claim fortune-telling nomads from India brought tarot cards to these areas first. Who could have predicted the mystical powers of tarot would influence one of the most popular pastimes in history? 

Regardless of their mysterious origins, playing cards have been embraced and reinvented by cultures across the globe for centuries. From medieval gambling dens to modern-day poker tables, these little rectangles of intrigue have primarily served as the cornerstone of countless games.

Cards Take Europe by Storm 

By the 1370s, playing cards had reached Italy and Spain. Italians created 40-card decks with suits of coins, swords, cups, and clubs. The Spanish used similar suits but varied the number of cards between 40 and 48. In 1377, a German monk named Johannes wrote about the cultural significance of cards and the variety of games being played all over Europe, marking one of the earliest written records. 

However, the association with gambling and other vices soon drew the ire of governments and the Church. Despite various bans, cards remained popular, especially among the wealthy, as hand-painted decks were costly. 

The bans on playing cards, however, had little lasting effects. Cards were still incredibly popular during the later stages of the 14th century, and well into the 15th. These intricately hand-painted cards were true masterworks of artistic ability. The sheer detail and effort that went into creating a deck of cards meant they were expensive, and at that time, only the wealthy and influential could afford them. But there was growing intrigue among the lower classes that producers didn’t want to ignore. 

So, to meet growing demand, savvy manufacturers developed new printing techniques, which meant they could produce them cheaper and faster. By the 15th century, Germany was using woodblock printing, while France standardized production with stencils and introduced the suits we recognize today: clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds.

The French reduced costs even further in the 1480s by using standardized stencils to mass produce cards. Not long after, they started using their own card suits, trefle (clover or club), pique (pike-heads or spades), coeur (hearts), and carreau (diamonds). The French-suited 52-card deck with English designed patterns would later become the standard for playing cards around the world. 

Around the 16th century the Persian card game As Nas was the gambling game of choice for large parts of the Middle East. The 20 card decks had five suits, As, shah, bibi, serbaz, and couli. The goal was similar to poker, make the best card combination and bet on the outcome. However, the European concept of only four card suits soon became the standard and other decks with more were slowly phased out.  

Another Crackdown on Playing Cards

In the 17th century, European countries attempted to monopolize card production, imposing severe penalties on unauthorized manufacturing—anyone caught trying to make their own could face a threat of fines, imprisonment and even the death penalty.

The justification at the time was that card games had led to rampant idleness and uncivil behaviour among the populace, so it was decided the sale of cards needed to be regulated and controlled. Despite tightening restrictions, the laws were often treated more like guidelines, especially if officials received hefty bribes from perpetrators. The Church stayed staunch in its opposition though, condemning card games as lewd and dishonest practices, especially if gambling or fortune telling were involved. 

When outlawing playing cards failed, they shifted to taxing card production, forcing many French card makers to relocate to Belgium. Consequently, English players began importing cheaper French decks. Imagine the thrill of avoiding tax through international card smuggling—James Bond would be impressed.

The Ace of Spades 

After England banned the importation of foreign trading cards in the early 1600s, local manufacturers increased production, eager to capitalize. The market became so large that by the 1760s, the English government adopted an aggressive new law to tax card manufacturers. The ace of spades had to be hand stamped by an official and would only occur after all taxes had been paid. Forging an ace was a crime punishable by death.

Around 1828 card manufacture reached an all time high in England with the use of stencils and primitive printing devices, hand stamping each deck with an ace of spades was no longer viable. Instead, a new law was passed requiring the ace of spades to be purchased from the Commissioners for Stamp Duties. The unique card would generally have elaborate designs near the manufacturer’s name, a tradition that continues to this day. The archaic laws would only last a few decades though; by 1862 card makers were given free rein to start printing their own ace of spades again.

During the French revolution from 1789 to 1799, the ace of spades rank was changed from the lowest card to the highest by French players. Games started to develop where the ace, which was traditionally a low card, was ranked higher than the royal cards, jack, queen and king as a symbol of the citizens growing distaste for being ruled over by monarchs. After the revolution ended, the concept stuck, and aces remained high but would later take on their lower ranked status as well, creating the first and only card that had two ranks. 

De La Rue Printing Company Sets the Standard 

In the 1860s Thomas de la Rue, founder of the De La Rue Printing Company, made the French designed hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades the standard suits for their playing cards. As a result of his innovative ideas, De La Rue was able to increase his product output and reduce costs drastically. 

It didn't take long for the English made decks to spread all over the world and become the most commonly used for card games. Aside from becoming one of the most prominent card manufacturers, De La Rue was also the first to start using plain backs on cards. In addition, simple lithographic designs were used both for their aesthetic appeal and to make the cards harder for cheaters to mark or modify.

Jokers and Corner Indices 

In 1864 Cyrus Saladee of Kentucky came up with a concept which would change playing cards forever. His idea was simple: print a number or letter with an emblem of the suit so players could look at their cards with a reduced risk of exposing them to the rest of the table. It would take a few years before the indexing system became popular but when it finally did, most card manufacturers adopted corner indices for their product. 

A less noteworthy contribution, but still significant, was the introduction of the jokers to decks. Around 1860 American card players started using a card they called the best-bower, a forerunner to the joker. It served as the highest trump card in the massively popular trick-taking game of Euchre. By 1875, the joker was being used in a variety of other games, including poker, where it was a wild card.

Playing Cards in the Modern Era 

By the early 1900s card manufacturing had become highly competitive. As a result, many smaller suppliers and manufacturers folded and were absorbed into larger companies, creating a few at the industry's peak. Automation soon followed and decks of cards were churned out in record numbers by a handful of large businesses. Many regions still manufactured their own traditional decks of cards, but the French-suited 52-card deck with English designed patterns would remain the most commonly used deck around the world, a status it still enjoys today. 

The next big change in playing cards wouldn’t come until the 1990s when they were created in a digital format for the first time. With the growing popularity of the PC, the Internet and the first online gambling website going live, digital cards soon became nearly as prominent as their real-life counterparts. What the future holds for playing cards is anyone’s guess, but they have come a long way since their humble beginnings as luxury goods for the wealthy and influential.

9 Fun Facts About Playing Cards 

1. Some believe decks have 52 cards to represent the 52 weeks in a year, with four suits for the seasons and 13 cards per suit for the weeks in each season. Who knew your deck was a calendar? Pretty cool, right?

2. During WWII the U.S. government supposedly created unique decks for the Red Cross to distribute in prisoner of war care packages. To the untrained eye the cards appeared normal, but when the front was peeled back, it revealed map sections of the regions surrounding prisoner of war camps to help with escapes. 

3. There was no queen card in a deck of cards for a long time. For example, the Spanish decks used a knight in place of a queen, while the German decks had an Obermann and an Untermann. Seems the queen was late to the party. 

4. The jacks were initially known as knaves or princes; however, players frequently used the slang term jack when referring to the card. Eventually, the slang term was officially adopted to avoid confusion with the king card. 

5. In Las Vegas most casinos change out their decks of cards every day, depending on a few factors such as how busy their card tables are and if the shuffling is being done by hand or machine. 

6. At one point some card games in the United Kingdom would swap the rank of the king and queen card to reflect the gender of the person ruling over the monarchy. 

7. One of the world's oldest surviving decks of cards is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The hand-painted tarot cards from the Netherlands have been traced back to the 15th century. 

8. The king of hearts is sometimes called the suicide king because the monarch appears to be stabbing himself in the head. The image was initially a mistake. When cards started being manufactured faster and in more significant quantities, the printing blocks and stencils would often wear out, resulting in some parts of the image fading away. Over time, the king of hearts sword was worn away on the stencil leaving only the hilt. Eventually, the misprint became the standard image for the king of hearts. 

9. French card makers would often model their picture cards on famous historical figures. For example, the king card has in the past been modelled on Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and Alexander the Great.