Once a deck of cards is ready to be retired (in Las Vegas a deck of cards is used for no more than 12 hours before being retired and taken out of circulation) the casino will either punch a whole through the cards or cut off a corner to also help prevent cheating. It also doesn't hurt that plastic playing cards last longer than their paper counterparts.

Most casinos around the world use plastic playing cards not for cost savings purposes, but rather to prevent cheating given that they are much more difficult to crease than paper-based playing cards.

We didn't spend the time calculating this, but according to credible resources there are actually more ways to shuffle a standard 52 deck of cards than there are atoms that make up the planet.

All other suits contain 4 cards per deck.

The joker, on the other hand, is a much more modern American invention and is the only card suit with two cards.

Modern cards originated in France in the late 1400's, when images of men and women were first introduced, along with the suits that are still used today: spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.

After poker Rummy -which is exceedingly popular in India- is considered to be the 2nd most popular card game. In fact, it has become so popular in the US that some consider it to be a sport and not a card game.

It is widely believed that poker is the world's most popular card game.

Our extensive collection of free online card games spans 10 classic free solitaire titles, as well as several other best in class card games including 2 classic versions ofĭid you know that playing cards were first invented in China around the 9th century AD (they more closely resembled dominoes than today’s paper cards), spread to India and Persia, and were later introduced in Europe in the 14th century? In fact, we’re the card game experts, having created the Microsoft Solitaire Collection that comes pre-installed on every single computer with Microsoft Windows. Here at Arkadium, we know a thing or two about card games.

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