王牌是众多有趣的东西之一，许多套牌都没有王牌，在大多数情况下，即便你失去王牌也没有太大的关系。那么，在一副扑克牌中为什么还会带有王牌呢？当我们谈到这个话题，我们会想到所有出现在牌桌上的纸牌又是从何而来呢？为什么总共有52张牌，包括四个套装而同时每个套装都会有13张牌呢？

　　根据《大英百科全书》的介绍，我们今天使用的52张牌是修正后的纸牌，一部分是标准的塔罗牌，同时还包括大阿尔克那和小阿尔克那，没有骑士牌。大概在15世纪，扑克牌才演变成我们今天所知晓的那种扑克形式。

　　然而，王牌一直都没有出现在扑克中，直到19世纪60年代的某个时候。在那个时候，euchre是非常受欢迎的一种扑克比赛（不久之后就被桥牌游戏挤下来）。在euchre比赛中，会根据英国的规则，使用一种包含有一张叫做帝国鲍尔（或最佳鲍尔）的纸牌的扑克牌，这张牌胜过其它所有的牌都大。扑克牌开始的时候包含一张特殊的帝国鲍尔牌，后来也就演变成今天所知道的王牌。

　　译文

　　Why do they include jokers in a deck of cards?

　　Jokers are one of those funny things，many decks don't have jokers, and in most cases you can lose the jokers and it doesn't matter. So why include them? And while we're on the topic, where did any of the cards in a deck come from? Why are there 52 cards, with four suits and 13 cards to a suit?

　　According to Britannica.com, the 52-card deck that we use today is a modification of part of the standard Tarot deck, made up of the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana, minus the knight cards. Probably around the 15th century, the deck started settling into the modern form we know today.

　　The joker, however, did not appear until sometime around the 1860s. At that time, the game of euchre was extremely popular （it was later unseated by bridge）。 In euchre, under the British rules, there is a card known as the Imperial Bower （or Best Bower） that trumps all others. Decks of cards began to include a special Imperial Bower card, and it later morphed into the joker card that we know today.