People all over the world know about poker games and have dealt with it, and almost every place claims it as their own invention. The Chinese believe that poker first originated in the 12th and 13th centuries during the Southern Song Dynasty with the Chinese game of Leaves (divided into four categories according to the four seasons). The French believe that playing cards evolved from the Tarot, while the British claim to be the first country to mention the card game in any authenticated record.
Now, everyone may know how to play blackjack or bridge, but few people take a moment to think about the fact that a deck of cards is a marvel of engineering, design and history. Not only is poker a recreational pastime, but it is also a tool for practicing and demonstrating high stakes gambling and magic tricks, not only as a mathematical probability model, but sometimes even as a currency or as a medium for the transmission of confidential information.
There is no consensus on the origin of poker, but just like the inventions of gunpowder, tea and porcelain, it is almost certain that poker games originated in the East. Scholars and historians disagree on the exact origin of poker, but they generally agree that it spread from the East to the West,” said Gejus Van Diggele, president of the International Playing Card Society (IPCS).
In addition, there is another theory that solitaire was first brought by nomads from India as a kind of card that could predict fate, putting a more ancient mark on the origin of solitaire. But whichever the origin, there must have been some commercial opportunity to promote the spread of solitaire in the distant East and Europe, while the development of printing technology also accelerated the production and spread of solitaire across borders.
In medieval Europe, card games were mostly associated with drinking, gambling and other bad habits. Due to the widespread nature of the game and the damage it did to the region, the authorities decided to ban it. Historian Michael Dummett, in his book “The Tarot Game”, mentions a decree in Paris that forbade citizens to play solitaire on weekdays. Later, card games were considered heretical by the Church, and missionaries lobbied that “the evil of cards” would only lead to a degradation of life, and similar bans were imposed throughout Europe, following the example of Paris.