As recently as the mid-1970s nearly 40 percent of all American adults played cards at least once a month, and the ratio of monthly card players to monthly moviegoers was four to one. Between 1981 and 1999, however, the average frequency of card playing among American adults plunged from sixteen times per year to eight times per year. By 1999 card playing still outdrew movies four to three, but the gap was closing fast. Were this same steady rate of annual decline to continue unabated, card playing would disappear entirely in less than two decades. For a social practice that is more than six
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