Definition
In criminal law, small papers or pasteboards of an oblong or rectangular shape, bearing printed figures, points, or colored symbols, used in playing certain games. The term appears in criminal law contexts primarily in relation to gaming statutes and the regulation of gambling devices. Playing cards as a physical object are not inherently unlawful; the legal significance attaches to their use in prohibited gambling activity.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Card games.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A piece of pasteboard, or thick paper, blank or prepared for various uses; a playing card, one of a pack used in games.
The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow in one direction but significant in another. In ordinary usage, cards are a recreational object. In legal usage, particularly in nineteenth-century criminal law and gaming statutes, cards are classified as a gambling device — a legal category that triggers specific statutory consequences regardless of whether any particular use involves wagering. The common meaning is value-neutral; the legal classification carries regulatory weight.
Common Confusion
Cards as an innocent pastime versus cards as a gambling device. Historical sources make clear that playing cards for amusement alone was not forbidden at common law, and gaming for money was similarly not a common law offense. Confusion arises because later gaming statutes in many American jurisdictions specifically enumerated "cards" as a prohibited gambling device, making the instrument itself the triggering object regardless of intent or outcome. Researchers should not assume that the common law treatment of cards carried forward into statutory law in a given jurisdiction.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a nineteenth-century criminal law entry tied to state gaming statutes rather than a freestanding legal concept of broad application. Researchers should approach it as a gateway term: the substantive law lies under GAMING, GAMBLING DEVICES, and the relevant state codes.
Several research traps apply. First, "cards" in historical legal sources often serves as a proxy for the broader question of what constituted a gambling device under a given statute — the cases behind the citations in Black's 2nd Ed. and Bouvier's turn on statutory enumeration, not on any inherent quality of the cards themselves. Second, postal cards appear as a distinct sub-topic in Bouvier's, and researchers searching historical indices should be alert to the possibility that "cards" in a document refers to postal cards or trade cards rather than playing cards. Third, the definition fragment appearing in Black's 1st Ed. runs directly into the definition of CARE, suggesting the typographical and indexing irregularities common in early editions; researchers using that edition should verify they are reading a complete entry.
The jurisdictional picture in the historical period was highly variable. Some states treated cards as a per se gambling device; others required proof of actual wagering. This distinction determined whether possession alone created criminal liability.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on a narrow, instrumentalist definition: cards are physical objects defined by their shape and markings, classified in criminal law as gambling devices. Bouvier's is the most substantively informative, noting the common law baseline (playing for amusement or even for money was not a common law offense) and citing Missouri and Wisconsin authority for the proposition that cards are a gambling device under statute. Black's 2nd Ed. follows the same structure with additional case citations. Anderson's Dictionary of Law declines to define the term independently and redirects to GAME, which is the more analytically developed entry in that source — useful guidance for researchers who need doctrinal depth rather than a physical description.
What the historical sources do not address: the administrative and regulatory treatment of cards under later twentieth-century gaming law, the rise of tribal gaming compacts, or the treatment of electronic card games. Those developments require modern statutory and regulatory sources entirely outside the historical dictionary shelf.
Jurisdictional Note
Treatment of cards as a gambling device varied substantially by state statute throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some jurisdictions enumerated specific games or devices; others used broad language that courts then interpreted to include or exclude playing cards. Researchers working with a specific jurisdiction should identify the operative gaming statute and its enumerated devices rather than relying on any general common law baseline.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: GAMING; GAMBLING DEVICES.