Joker Card History: Euchre Origin, Name and Two Jokers

A poker deck has 52 cards with a fixed order, suit and value, and then one or two that fit nowhere. That suitless card is the one our shop is named after, and its history is shorter and more specific than is usually claimed: it does not come from medieval courts or the tarot, but from an American card table in the mid-19th century. This guide to the history of the joker card covers where it came from, why it is called a joker, how its design has changed, how many jokers each deck contains and which games actually use it.

Before the joker: a deck with no wild cards

For almost five centuries European playing cards worked without any joker at all. Cards reached Europe in the last quarter of the 14th century, and the French suits (spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs) were settled at the end of the 15th; we cover this in detail in the history of the poker deck. Throughout that time, every card belonged to a suit and had a rank. If a game needed a particularly powerful card, it was chosen from those already there: the trump suit, a particular jack, an ace.

This matters for understanding the joker. It was not a card that existed and then found a use, but the other way round: a specific game called for an extra card, and the manufacturers eventually printed it. That is why the 52-card deck is several centuries older than its joker, and why any account that places the joker in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance does not hold up.

Euchre and the Best Bower: the documented origin of the joker card

Euchre is a trick-taking game that reached the United States in the early 19th century, probably with German-speaking immigrants, and derives from a game played in Alsace called Jucker or Juckerspiel. It was hugely popular in the 19th century, including among soldiers in the Civil War, before poker took over the limelight.

Its most distinctive feature is its trumps. In euchre the highest cards are not the aces but the jacks, which are called bowers (from the German Bauer, «farmer», which in German also means the jack):

• Right Bower: the jack of the trump suit, the highest card.
• Left Bower: the other jack of the same colour, which counts as a trump and is the second-highest card.

In the mid-19th century American players added a third card above those two: the Best Bower, also called the Imperial Bower. The card game historian David Parlett places that addition in the 1850s, and it is the explanation specialists share today. The first ones were simply blank cards that came in the pack and were used for that purpose.

With hearts as trumps, the order in euchre with a joker is: Best Bower (the joker), jack of hearts (Right Bower) and jack of diamonds (Left Bower). Then come the ace, king and queen of hearts.

Samuel Hart and the 1863 Imperial Bower

The step from blank card to illustrated card can be dated. Samuel Hart, a Philadelphia card maker who later opened a business in New York, printed an illustrated Best Bower in 1863 which he called the Imperial Bower. It is the oldest known example with a design of its own and is regarded as the first printed ancestor of the joker. Hart had worked with his uncle, Lewis I. Cohen, one of the pioneers of the American playing card industry, and his firm was merged into the New York Consolidated Card Company in 1871.

Over the following decade the extra card became widespread. Cards already labelled «Joker» begin to appear in the late 1860s, and in the 1870s New York makers such as Andrew Dougherty and Victor E. Mauger included their own joker. Before it was simply called the «Joker», the card had other names: Best Bower, Little Joker or Jolly Joker. The last of these explains why the joker is still called the jolly in Italy today.

The jump to Britain

The British maker Charles Goodall, who also helped establish the Anglo-American deck pattern, produced decks with a joker for the American market in the 1870s. For the British market the joker arrived soon after: sources place it between 1874 and 1880. Within barely a generation, a card invented for a regional American game had become part of decks sold across half the world.

Why is it called a joker? The theories

On the origin of the card there is consensus. On the origin of the name, there is not. Three explanations recur in serious sources, and none is proven by a document that settles the matter. They are best read for what they are: hypotheses.

In Spanish the card is called the comodín, a word that describes its function rather than its origin: the card that can take the value of any other. In English the same idea gave us «wild card», and in both languages the term has spread beyond cards to any resource that serves many purposes or is used once to get out of a tight spot.

How the joker's design has changed

The joker is the only card in the deck without an established design. The court cards of the Anglo-American deck follow an inherited pattern and the ace of spades has its own tradition, but every maker draws its joker as it likes and registers it as part of its brand. That freedom explains almost everything that has happened to its imagery.

From child to jester

The first Best Bowers and jokers do not always show a jester. There are rogues, children, stage characters, animals and allegorical figures: Hart's Imperial Bower, for example, was not a clown. The jester gradually took over in the 1870s and 1880s, and it is not hard to see why. The word joker suggests a prankster, and the jester naturally completes a deck that already has a king, queen and jack: he is the court figure with no rank who can say what others cannot. Some of those early jokers show clowns and jesters with somewhat unsettling features, and among the models cited is the Elizabethan comic actor Richard Tarlton, the most famous jester in 16th-century England.

How it is identified at the table

Since it has no suit or number, each maker handles the corner indices in its own way. There are jokers with no index, with stars (Bee decks use stars), with the word «JOKER» written vertically or with the brand's monogram. It is common for a deck to come with two different jokers, one in full colour and one in a single colour, or one red and one black. The difference has a use: in some games the two jokers are not worth the same.

The joker and the ace of spades are the two cards on which manufacturers allow themselves the most graphic freedom. That is also why collectors seek them out most.

Advertising jokers

Being a card with no fixed function in many games, the joker soon became an advertising space. In 1920s Britain, for example, the maker De la Rue printed special jokers for brands of soap and motor oil and for a Manchester newspaper, with the advertiser built into the design. Company decks, and those from breweries and tobacco firms, followed the same logic for much of the 20th century: the most visible card in the deck carried the logo.

Today that freedom is used mostly by designer decks. In design editions the joker is often the most elaborate card in the pack, the one the illustrator signs or the one that hides a nod for those who know the series.

Did you know decks like these exist?

At heart, every deck has the same cards. What changes is everything else: the design, the finish, metallic inks or gilded edges. Take a look at our catalogue and bring your own style to the card table.

€12.99Visa Red€49.95Asura Deluxe Blue€16.95theory11 Fantastic Four€14.96Tally-Ho 2024 Flores

Browse our playing cards →

How many jokers are in a deck, and why?

There is no single figure. It depends on the country, the maker and the games the deck was designed for. The short answer: two in American and British decks, three in German and Austrian decks, two in the 50-card Spanish deck. If you want the full card count for each kind of deck, see how many cards are in a deck.

Standard poker deck: 52 cards + 2 jokers

Why are there two jokers in a deck? The canasta effect

In its first decades, a deck normally came with a single joker, which was enough for euchre and for poker with a wild card. The change came with canasta, born in Montevideo in 1939 and a craze in the Americas and Europe in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Canasta is played with two decks and four jokers, so manufacturers began putting two in each deck so that two packs would make up a set. The habit stuck.

The third German joker

In Germany and Austria, French-suited decks have come with three jokers since the 1950s, so a rummy box with two decks contains six. Why three and not two is unclear. One explanation that has been put forward has to do with printing: if the print sheet has 55 positions (11 × 5), it yields 52 cards and leaves three spaces that are filled with jokers. It is a reasonable hypothesis, but nobody has documented it.

Games that use jokers

The joker plays very different roles depending on the game. Put simply, there are three: wild card, standing in for any other (rummy, canasta, poker with a joker); fixed trump, the highest card in the game (euchre, 500); and special card with a role of its own (old maid, dou dizhu). These are the games in which it is used most:

A useful note if you are going to play: the joker has no universal value. In canasta it is worth 50 points, in burraco 30, in poker it can be an ace or any card, and in euchre it is simply the card that wins. We sum it up alongside all the other cards in poker card values.

The joker in the Spanish deck

The traditional Spanish deck had no joker. It has four suits (coins, cups, swords and clubs) and is played with 40 or 48 cards depending on the game, and none of the classic Spanish trick-taking games needs one: not mus, tute, brisca or guiñote. We explain this in our guide to the Spanish deck.

The joker entered the Spanish deck in imitation of the French-suited one, in the 20th century. Since the middle of the century, the usual form sold in Spain has been the 50-card deck: the traditional 48 plus two jokers. They are used mainly in the rummy-type games that arrived with rummy's influence, above all chinchón, where they are optional and depend on the table.

50-card Spanish deck: 48 + 2 jokers

In some games played with the Spanish deck, the wild card role is filled by an ordinary card rather than an added one: in Mexican pokar, for example, the ace of coins is wild. It is the same idea as «deuces wild» in poker, where the twos act as jokers: you do not need a dedicated card to have a wild card, just a rule that gives another card that role.

Joker vs the Fool in tarot: similar, not related

This is the most widespread misconception about the joker, and it is easy to see why. The tarot has a card with no number or suit, the Fool (il Matto in Italy, le Mat in the Tarot de Marseille, the Excuse in French tarot), which closely resembles the joker: it belongs to no series, changes the rules when it is played and is often drawn as a marginal character or a jester.

But the two cards have different histories. The tarot was born in northern Italy in the 15th century as a deck for a trick-taking game with trumps, and its Fool has been there since the oldest surviving examples, from the middle of that century. The joker appears four centuries later, on another continent and within another game. A writer in the 1970s suggested that the Fool was the forerunner of the joker; the explanation held by game historians today, starting with David Parlett, is that the joker arose independently in euchre.

The relationship can be described cautiously like this: the Fool and the joker solve the same design problem (a card that breaks the rules of all the others) and popular culture has brought them so close that today they seem to be the same idea. Even the Unicode standard, which encodes playing cards as characters, includes three jokers (red, black and white; the black one is the 🃏 you see on your phone) separately from the tarot Fool.

The Joker in popular culture

Much of what is associated with the joker today (chaos, unpredictability, the unsettling grin) does not come from playing cards but from what was built on top of them. Separating what is documented from what is merely repeated helps make sense of the card.

Batman's villain and a playing card

The best-known case is the Joker of the comics, who first appeared in Batman #1, in spring 1940. His creation is the subject of a dispute between Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson that was never resolved. Robinson, who was 17 at the time, maintained until his death in 2011 that the character began with his sketch of a joker card, inspired by a deck he had to hand. Kane argued that the idea was his and Finger's, and that Robinson's card was only used as the character's calling card in the early issues. What all three versions agree on is that Finger contributed the image of actor Conrad Veidt in the film The Man Who Laughs (1928), with his permanent grin, which shaped the villain's look. Many comics historians credit Robinson with the creation and Finger with its development.

What is certain is the direction of influence: the playing card inspired the villain, not the other way round. When a joker is drawn with a sinister expression today, it owes more to that comics and film tradition than to the jokers of the 19th century, which were mostly comic figures.

The joker as a word

In almost every language the card has given its name to an idea: the person or resource that can do anything, the trick kept back for the end. In English wild card also means an invited entry in a tournament; in Spanish someone is called «un comodín» when they can cover any position. It is one of the few cards to have passed into everyday language with its game function intact.

Collecting joker cards

Collecting individual jokers is a well-established hobby within playing card collecting, and there is a practical reason for it: since many players throw the jokers away when they open a poker deck, and since every maker and edition has its own, the joker is the most varied card of all. Playing card collectors tend to focus on four things: jokers, aces of spades, court cards and backs.

The Guinness World Record for the largest collection of jokers belongs to the Italian magician Donato «Tony» De Santis of Rome: 8,520 different jokers in 2009, each with a different face (not just a different back). He started in 1999 with a collection of 2,000 pieces inherited from another magician, Fernando Riccardi. Some collectors claim larger collections, but they have not been certified.

What makes a joker valuable to a collector:

• Age: 19th-century Best Bowers and jokers, especially American ones from the 1860s and 1870s, are scarce and highly sought after.
• Advertising: jokers from brands, newspapers or companies, printed in short runs.
• Provenance: there are jokers from almost every country with a playing card industry, and each tradition has its own traits.
• Designer editions: in today's design decks, the joker is often the signed or most elaborate card, and sometimes the joker varies between print runs of the same deck.

How much does a deck of cards cost?

From €5 to over €100. The 52 cards and the rules stay the same; this is what changes.

	To play€5.95	Designer€12.95	Premium€17.99	Collectible€34.94
Typical price	€5-9	€9-15	€15-30	€30 or more
What sets it apart	Classic casino design	Artist illustration on back and faces	Special inks, embossing and foil on the box	Limited print runs and gilded edges
Who it is for	Games at home	Playing with something beautiful	Gifts or cardistry	Collecting and display
Example	Tally-Ho Fan Azul	theory11 Medallion	The Sandwich Series (Luncheon Meat)	Kings Wild LOTR Two Towers Gilded
	See decks	See decks	See decks	See decks

Frequently asked questions

Who invented the joker card?

It has no known inventor. American euchre players added it in the mid-19th century as the highest trump, first using a blank card. The earliest known illustrated example is the Imperial Bower printed by Samuel Hart in 1863.

Why is it called a joker?

Nobody knows for certain. The most accepted theory links it to Jucker, the Alsatian game from which euchre derives. Others explain it by the English word joker (prankster) or as a corruption of «euchre card». None is proven.

How many jokers are in a deck of cards?

Usually two in American and British decks, and three in German and Austrian ones. At first decks had one; the second became standard with the canasta craze in the late 1940s and the 1950s.

Does the Spanish deck have a joker?

The traditional 40 or 48-card deck does not. The 50-card deck, the usual retail form since the mid-20th century, comes with two jokers, which are used mainly in chinchón as a table option.

Is the joker used in poker?

Not in Texas Hold'em or standard poker. There are variants with a joker, either fully wild or as the «bug» (it counts only as an ace or to complete a straight or a flush), and they bring in five of a kind.

Is the joker the Fool from the tarot?

No. The Fool has been part of the tarot since the 15th century, in Italy; the joker was born in the United States in the 19th century for euchre. They are similar in function and image, but historians consider that the joker arose independently.

What is the joker worth?

It depends on the game. In canasta it is worth 50 points; in burraco, 30; in British euchre and in 500 it is the highest card; in poker with the bug it counts as an ace unless it completes a straight or a flush.

If after reading this you feel like looking at jokers in a new way, our playing cards section has classic and designer editions, each with its own joker.

Want more guides like this? Sign up for the newsletter.

Keep exploring

• History of the poker deck: the French-suited deck
• How many cards are in a deck
• Poker card values
• Games for a standard deck of cards
• Canasta rules

NEW IN

Playing Cards

See all →

Gemini

Gemini Casino Phthalo Green – Playing Cards

€17.94 Add

Riffle Shuffle

Icon Black – Playing Cards

€16.95 Add

Jetsetter Playing Cards

Premier Edition Restricted Red – Playing Cards

€16.95 Add

Jetsetter Playing Cards

Premier Edition Jet Black Private Reserve – Playing Cards

€17.94 Add

Card Mafia

Card Mafia One Piece Robin – Playing Cards

€18.95 Add

Jetsetter Playing Cards

Lounge Edition Terminal Turquoise – Playing Cards

€15.95 Add

Jetsetter Playing Cards

Lounge Edition Taxiway Yellow – Playing Cards

€15.95 Add

Bocopo

Cardistry Fanning Yellow Edition – Playing Cards

€16.95 Add