The History Of Card Playing

By Author: Jim Thomson
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Playing cards are known for their various games of skill and chance including poker, blackjack, solitaire, bridge, and many other games. Playing cards are used in gambling, magic, solitary games, card houses, and other various forms of entertainment. A deck of cards can be found everywhere, in dollar stores, in grocery stores, on the Internet, etc. Because playing cards are taken for granted, few people know the history of the cards that they play with.

Historians believe that playing cards were invented first by the Persians. From there, They moved East to China and West to Egypt.

The Chinese were the fist to invent the suit, Coins. This is a recurring suit throughout history. It is known ad both Coins and Diamonds today.

Egypt was where the four suits concept was first invented. These four suits were called Swords, Sticks, Cups, and Coins. These suits are still used in the 78 card Tarot deck.

From Egypt,the deck of cards moved farther West, into Europe.

In the 13th century, The French invented the red and black deck with simple symbols that became the basis for the current common deck of ...
... cards.

Early cards had no Queens. This reflected the fact that there were no women in the Royal courts. Even today, the French deck of cards have no Queens.

The games of skill and chance that could be played with a deck of cards bred the use of the playing cards as a gambling tool and gambling quickly became a favorite pastime among card players. So much of a favorite pastime that in the 14th century, the church began to try to limit the sale of playing cards due to the fact that people began spending more time and money gambling than going to and giving to the church. The church won out on their battle and the playing cards were banned throughout most of Europe.