That's a great question. I searched for a good while on this one, but no one seems to know WHO invented them. If anyone can find the answer for this, please let me know! As for when they were invented, I found the results were nearly as obscure. Some scholars indicate that playing cards were invented about 1000 A.D. in China or Korea, and they may have evolved from a set of Chinese dominoes similar to the 19th century set. Other scholars indicate that dominoes as well as playing cards evolved from "flattened", marked, arrows much earlier than 1000 A.D.. On the other hand, some theorists indicate that around the 12th century A.D., circular suited playing cards from India (which may or may not have come from China) found their way to Egypt and were modified somewhat in Egypt. By the 14th century A.D. the Egyptian deck found its way to Italy and Spain and soon after spread throughout Europe. So basically...the history of playing cards is somewhat lost. We may never know who to thank for the great invention. But at least we know it's not Hoyle, like many people think. :-)

Historians believe playing cards were invented in China where paper was invented as well. Some version of the standard English 52-card deck was later introduced into Europe via the Islamic empire. It was after this that the human figures of the court--kings, queens and their attendants--appeared on the cards. http://www.libraryspot.com/know/playingcards.htm The origin of playing cards is obscure, but it is almost certain that they began in China after the invention of paper. Ancient Chinese "money cards" have four "suits": coins (or cash), strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), myriads of strings, and tens of myriads. These were represented by ideograms, with numerals of 2-9 in the first three suits and numerals 1-9 in the "tens of myriads". Wilkinson suggests in The Chinese origin of playing cards that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for. The designs on modern Mahjong tiles and dominoes likely evolved from those earliest playing cards. The Chinese word pái is used to describe both paper cards and gaming tiles. An Indian origin for playing cards has been suggested by the resemblance of symbols on some early European decks to the ring, sword, cup, and baton classically depicted in the four hands of Indian statues. This is an area that still needs research. The time and manner of the introduction of cards into Europe are matters of dispute. The 38th canon of the council of Worcester (1240) is often quoted as evidence of cards having been known in England in the middle of the 13th century; but the games de rege et regina there mentioned are now thought to more likely have been chess. If cards were generally known in Europe as early as 1278, it is very remarkable that Petrarch, in his dialogue that treats gaming, never once mentions them. Boccaccio, Chaucer and other writers of that time specifically refer to various games, but there is not a single passage in their works that can be fairly construed to refer to cards. Passages have been quoted from various works, of or relative to this period, but modern research leads to the supposition that the word rendered cards has often been mistranslated or interpolated. It is likely that the ancestors of modern cards arrived in Europe from the Mamelukes of Egypt in the late 1300s, by which time they had already assumed a form very close to those in use today. In particular, the Mameluke deck contained 52 cards comprising four "suits": polo sticks, coins, swords, and cups. Each suit contained ten "spot" cards (cards identified by the number of suit symbols or "pips" they show) and three "court" cards named malik (King), nā'ib malik (Viceroy or Deputy King), and thānī nā'ib (Second or Under-Deputy). The Mameluke court cards showed abstract designs not depicting persons (at least not in any surviving specimens) though they did bear the names of military officers. A complete pack of Mameluke playing cards was discovered by L.A. Mayer in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum, Istanbul, in 1939 [1]; this particular complete pack was not made before 1400, but the complete deck allowed matching to a private fragment dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century. There is some evidence to suggest that this deck may have evolved from an earlier 48-card deck that had only two court cards per suit, and some further evidence to suggest that earlier Chinese cards brought to Europe may have travelled to Persia, which then influenced the Mameluke and other Egyptian cards of the time before their reappearance in Europe. It is not known whether these cards influenced the design of the Indian cards used for the game of Ganjifa, or whether the Indian cards may have influenced these. Regardless, the Indian cards have many distinctive features: they are round, generally hand painted with intricate designs, and comprise more than four suits (often as many as twelve). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card#Early_history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card This should answer your question.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/9537 good luck