Is it permitted to play cards on Shabbat?

Shalom,

It is permitted to play cards on Shabbat, but one must be careful not to separate the different cards at the end of the game in order to sort them by type or color and the like, because this involves the prohibition of borer. Separating and arranging them in order to play with them immediately is permitted (Shmirat Shabbat Kehilchatah, part 1, chapter 16, section 35).

However, all this applies only to children under the age of bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah. Once they have passed this age, it is certainly preferable that they refrain from playing on Shabbat, because Shabbat, the delight of days, was given for pleasure, a spiritual delight akin to the World to Come, and whoever honors it by refraining from his ordinary activities on it is given an inheritance without boundaries (ibid., section 1).

With blessings,

Hillel Meirs