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Canasta is a classic card game that originated in Uruguay in the 1940's, quickly spreading to Argentina and later to the rest of Latin America. It became immensely popular throughout the United States during the 1950's and was at one time the most popular
of all card games. There was an attempt by Manhattan's Regency Club to standardise the official rules, using the name "Classic Canasta" and this is the version commonly played.
At one point in
the history of America, Canasta was the most popular card game. Over sixty years later, it still retains a large number of devotees. Canasta means “basket” in Spanish, which probably refers to the tray that holds cards during play, so for this reason, the game is sometimes called Basket Rummy. Amongst the many Canasta games, the more popular variants are Samba, Bolivia, Hand and Foot and Pennies from Heaven and it is known as "Kanasta" in Poland and some other
countries in Europe.
During the 1940's Canasta received a lot of positive press and publicity. Newsweek reported that Canasta rivalled Monopoly and Mahjong, the two biggest games of all time. Fortune magazine recorded that Canasta books and card deck sales were breaking all records. Life featured a cover story about the game and published its rules whilst The New York Times covered the game several times over the next five years. Canasta was a craze that swept the entire United States.
In 1949, TIME Magazine reported:
"Bridge was almost eclipsed and so was Gin
Rummy. A double deck card game called Canasta
had spread over the hemisphere. In Buenos
Aires, citadel of the game, Canasta had
progressed from a diversion to a rage. This newest fad is a rip roaring, high scoring game of the Rummy family. It combines the melding features of Pinochle, the building principle of Gin and some of the partnership elements of Bridge. What a Canasta player needs most is endurance."
Albert H. Morehead has pointed out that Canasta and Mahjong are much alike, in that both are Rummy games, and that "each had its boom period a few years after a World War." According Philip E Orbanes, if you look in compendiums of game rules, you will probably find that the name of the game's inventor(s) is absent: "Was there an inventor of Canasta? Or did the game merely evolve through the play of many people; was there, in fact, no real originator to thank and credit?" (The
Games Journal).
It turns out that the game was in fact devised by an attorney named Segundo Santos and an Architect named Alberto Serrato who arbitrarily named it Canasta and purposefully decided to develop it from Rummy, which they regarded as being
a little too high on chance. They decided to combine the best elements of both Bridge and Rummy and a Rummy variant called "Cooncan". His partner Serrato, an avid bridge player, played the game for weeks studying the rules and working out the different options. The end result marked the beginnings of Canasta.
By 1953 over 30 books had been written about Canasta, many of which entered the New York Times bestseller list and from there the game spread globally with many soldiers in the military playing the game as an active pastime and becoming a staple amongst the armed forces around the world. Soviet athletes played it despite their government's dislike of the decadent American culture.
Segundo and Serrato never did attempt to copyright or in any
way protect the rules of the game from an intellectual property point of view. As an attorney, he knew there would be little point in trying to copyright the rules of the game. "You can't copyright a thing with antecedents like that," he said. Neither he nor Serrato did, and as a result Canasta became their gift to the world. Many firms did try, somewhat successfully, to get a piece of the commercial action generated by Canasta fever. Not only were card sets and books published, but so were coffee mugs, ashtrays, dresses, and dolls, to name just a few products
in a merchandising machine that tried to exploit the growing popularity of Canasta.
