But juckerspiel players created a card that could trump even the jacks. In it, the top two trump cards are the jacks, known as the “right bower” and the “left bower,” since bauer is the German word used for jack (its direct translation is farmer). Jokers were added to the deck around the 1860s-long after card decks became common-to capitalize on the popularity of a game called euchre, from the Alsatian game juckerspiel. Sure, you can use one to stand in for a missing card-but if that’s their main purpose, why have a design on them at all?Īs HowStuffWorks explains, that wasn’t originally their main purpose.
Beyond imbuing every deck of cards with a jesterly sense of fun, jokers have no real role in many games.
