Poker Facts
Here are some poker facts, some funny and some not so funny!
- The number of possible poker hands available with 52 cards is 2,598,960.
- The USA sells around 70 million packs of cards every year.
- When Columbus docked in America in 1492 his fellowmen found leaves from trees, drew pictures on them and had games of cards.
- The sport of poker is the third most watched on cable TV, slightly behind racing and football.
- A fifth card suit was added to poker in 1937. However this never caught on as people didn’t want to have to buy new sets of cards.
- The four kings in each set resembles a famous king from history – Spades – King David, Hearts is Charlemagne, Clubs is Alexander the Great and Diamonds is Julius Caesar.
- A famous phrase used in poker is the ‘dead man’s hand’. This is when a player has an Ace and an Eight. This phrase has being created after Wild Bill Hickok was playing poker and was shot; he was holding the ace and the eight at the time.