> If you grew up in certain communities or religious groups, standard playing cards were forbidden items because of their association with gambling.

I was told it was because the face cards were derived from Tarot cards. Playing Uno or Rook (which had only numbers on their cards) at functions was considered just fine -- although of course any poker chips would have been so obviously Right Out that nobody even thought to ask.

(FYI later on I looked it up and the face cards do not derive from Tarot cards; but these discussions happened before the World Wide Web.)