How were playing cards connected with gambling in early European society?

In early European society, playing cards were inextricably linked to gambling, as the practice of playing card games strictly for leisure is a historically recent development.1

When cards arrived in Europe in the 1370s, they provided a versatile alternative to traditional dice games, which were the primary form of multiplayer gambling at the time. As production costs fell due to wood-block printing and stenciling, card games proliferated across social classes. This expansion included both simple, unskilled games derived from dice-based gambling and more intellectually demanding trick-taking games, all of which were typically played for money.12

The widespread association between cards and gambling led to frequent moral and legal pushback. Church authorities often denounced the practice, while civic leaders prohibited specific games. Conversely, governments recognized the financial potential of this popularity; some monarchs, such as Louis XIV of France, encouraged card-based gambling in royal settings, while others imposed taxes on card manufacture or established state monopolies to capture revenue from the industry.1