How did solitaire games originate in late 18th-century Europe?

Card solitaires originated toward the end of the 18th century, likely in the Baltic region of Europe. Their emergence is closely linked to a contemporary surge of interest in tarot and cartomancy, as the methods for laying out cards for these fortune-telling practices bear a marked similarity to the setup of early solitaire games.1

The term cabale, which is still used for solitaire in some Scandinavian countries, translates to "secret knowledge," further suggesting that these games may have initially served as a form of divination; whether a game successfully "came out" was interpreted as an indication of whether a player's desire would be fulfilled. While early records indicate these games were sometimes used for gambling—such as a 1793 German account describing a contest where players and bystanders placed bets on the outcome of a game—they eventually evolved into the familiar one-player activities known today as patience or solitaire.1