Although the design was very different, their use was very much the same: typically as entertainment and sometimes with a wager placed on the outcome of the game.Īs card games developed, a select few began to emerge as the most popular with poker, solitaire, and bridge topping the very expansive list. The date playing cards arrived in Europe is still under debate, but most scholars agree that they appeared around the 1300s from Egypt. These cards were used as a way to pass the time. The earliest playing card found dates back to the 9th century in ancient China. Beyond that, card games have an extreme amount of variety and can cater towards players looking for a relaxing experience, social interaction, intellectual challenge, and even the thrill of risk taking. Typically card games have three common qualities: a dealer, the players, and the cards themselves. These games are played all around the world with many of the popular games like euchre, poker, and bridge having variants depending on culture. The cards can be a regular 52-card, 4-suit deck, or they can be unique to the game. A card game is any type of game that uses playing cards as the main playing tool.