Excerpt from:
http://skepdic.com/tarot.html
Gypsies didn't begin using tarot cards until the twentieth century. Today, there are many different tarot decks used in cartomancy. The meanings of the figures and numbers on tarot cards vary greatly among tarot readers and advocates, many of whom find connections between tarot and the cabala, astrology, the I Ching, ancient Egypt, and various other occult and mystical notions.
The oldest playing cards date back to tenth century China, but the four suits of tarot and modern playing cards probably originated with a fourteenth century Muslim deck .[Decker]
According to de Givry, in the modern 52-card deck of ordinary playing cards, sticks or wands = clubs (and announce news); swords = spades (and presage unhappiness and death); cups = hearts (and presage happiness); coins = diamonds (and presage money). According to Decker, the Muslim sticks represented polo sticks. As Europeans were not yet familiar with polo, they changed the suit of sticks to that of wands, cudgels or batons.