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Playing Cards in Gambling History

Many gambling games use playing cards. History shows that playing cards have been used for gambling even in their earliest forms.

The Chinese were the first to use some form of playing cards. This was a natural historical development since they had invented paper. Perhaps the first instance of gambling with playing cards occurred when the Chinese shuffled paper money into certain combinations. The money being used was also the wager. Later, distinct playing cards were developed but still using the same symbols as their money.

The Chinese were traders and their playing cards reached the Mameluke Empire. The Muslims created their own cards with their own designs, using elaborate patterns and symbols like cups and swords. By the 1300s, playing cards were brought to Europe. They were handpainted and so costly that only the nobility could afford them. In Italy and Spain, the figures of male nobles were drawn in. It was when playing cards began to be mass produced through woodblock printing that they began to be widely used by ordinary people in gambling.

The use of playing cards in gambling, and its prohibition, is recorded many times in history.

Naibbe, which is a gambling game with playing cards, was banned in 1376 in Florence, Italy. Six years later, gambling games including all those using playing cards, were forbidden in Lille, France. Naipes, the Spanish name of naibbe, was banned in Valencia, Spain in 1384.

In 1397, playing cards were banned in Ulm, Germany. In Paris, working people were forbidden by law to gamble with playing cards during their workdays. Also in that year, gambling with playing cards was declared illegal in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Even then, the European nobility were recorded to have been addicted to gambling with playing cards and dice.

Written history shows that in Mamluk, Egypt in the 1400s, the future sultan gambled with playing cards and won huge amounts of money.

The prohibitions continued, though. In Langres, France in 1404, the Bishop had to forbid gambling with playing cards among the priests. In 1423 in Siena, Italy, St. Bernadin preached against gambling with playing cards. In 1476 in Spain, the monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella likewise banned gambling with playing cards.

The prohibitions did not stop the evolution of playing cards. In the 1600s, the French pack emerged with 52 cards. It was also the French who developed the four suits in the colors and shapes used today. This deck of playing cards is what is being used for gambling in all casinos around the world. The same deck is used for online gambling on the Internet.

Playing cards and gambling seem to be intertwined even in unfolding history.