Tarot card games

Tarot card games are card games played with tarot decks. The basic rules first appeared in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425. The games, known as "tarot", "tarock", "tarocco" and other spellings, are known in many variations, mostly cultural and regional.

The deck which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot is called Tarocco in Italian, Tarock in German and various similar words in other languages. Tarot games originated in Italy, and spread to most parts of Europe, notable exceptions being the British Isles, the Iberian peninsula, and the Balkans. They are played with decks having four ordinary suits, and one additional, longer suit of tarots, which are always trumps. They are characterised by the rule that a player who cannot follow to a trick with a card of the suit led must play a trump to the trick if possible. Tarot games may have introduced the concept of trumps to card games. More recent tarot games borrowed features from other games like bidding from Ombre and winning the last trick with the lowest trump from Trappola.