The History of Card Games Throughout the Centuries

Card games likely traversed Egypt to Europe in the late 1300's, though the exact details are still debated until this day. The Marmelukes from Egypt made a game of cards around 1400 that looks like the game that is played today. The Marmelukes' deck of cards consists of fifty-two cards that feature cups, money, weapon and polo sticks. The cards in the deck feature the numbers 1 to 10 and also include high cards like kings, viceroys and deputies.

Although the cards do not show people, they show names and usually represent ranking officers in the military. As the time passes by, the design of the cards evolved as the popularity of the game increased among the nobility in Europe, the most famous being the changing of the court cards to people that showed royalty. Medieval decks were created from thin wooden rectangles, that are enhanced in an Arabic style and were crafted by hand, which made them precious and really expensive and the cards became a symbol of the nobility.

With the introduction of wood engraving, card makers were able to craft a lot of cards during the 1400's, making them more affordable with the gaming masses. The gold rush in California during the 1800's introduced card games all over the world. The countries of France, Spain and Italy all claim to be the place where blackjack began. France said that blackjack came from the game chemin de fer and Ferme.

The country of Italy said that its beginning can be traced to the game of baccarat and sette e mezzo, but a lot of people believe that the very first card game to be known in existence and similar to blackjack was the One and Thirty, a Spanish Card game, which became really popular in the Western Europe during the 1500's. It is the first example of a banking game, a card game in which a lot of players make their move against the casino or the banker, in a series of pair player games, the main objective in this game was to achieve a total of 31 with your cards.

After a span of two centuries, a lot of numerous variations spread all over Europe, like the game of Vingt-en-Un. The game is also called as Vingt-Un and it considered to be a version of the 1 and 30, requires gamblers to get a total of twenty-one and gives permission to use the ace card as both a one card and an eleven card. It has become really popular with the nobility during the reign of King Louis XV.

The game was then introduced in the U.S. back in the 1800's by the British and was first featured in the American Hoyle and Gentleman's Guide on Games in 1875. The gold rush that happened back in the mid 1800's attracted people who love gaming in the west where it was not considered as illegal. It was introduced and continued by miners who went there to search for their own luck.