How To Print Playing Card Boxes

If you produce your own playing cards, printing accompanying playing card tuck boxes are ideal for adding a professional finishing touch. Not only do custom playing card tuck boxes make your printed cards look the real deal, but they also serve as a protective cover for your custom playing cards, keeping them all together, dust-free, and protected from damage.

As we’re printers, we try and give you all the custom options you need to make a playing card box that perfectly matches the theme of your cards. From custom tuck boxes using G.F Smith colorplan papers to having unique finishes such as gloss or soft-touch laminates. We can print your playing card boxes from as little as 50 boxes to a run of 5000 in any design you like, printed all on the outer face. Perfect for card game boxes or promotional poker cards used for reinforcing your brand. If you’re looking to make your own playing card box then read on.

What Is A Card Tuck Box?

A card tuck box is just another name for a cardboard playing card box or packaging. The tuck part of the name comes from the way the lid of the playing card box actually tucks itself into the top of the packaging to close itself. You essentially tuck in the lid flap for a secure closing mechanism.

How Big Is A Playing Card Box?

While playing card tuck boxes can come in almost any size, there are a few standard sizes that we can go over. All of these playing card box sizes assume that you’re using 14pt silk paper with a matt laminate coating. We’ve also added 2mm to the height and width when compared with the size of the actual card to allow for a small gap on the sides, top and bottom of your playing card box.

Later on we’ve included a handy thickness chart to know how thick your playing card box should be if you’re using anywhere between 10 and 100 cards per deck.

With that said, let's go over the size of playing card boxes for a number of common playing card box dimensions.

Poker Card Playing Card Boxes

Poker cards are renowned for having luxurious tuck boxes and there are many out there that are even collectable. A standard poker card deck contains 52 cards or 54 including two joker cards. Based on the card thickness we’ve mentioned above, the standard size of a poker card tuck box with 52 cards is (W)66x(H)91x(D)19mm. If you have 54 poker cards, go with a depth of 20mm.

Tarot Card Tuck Boxes

Custom printed tarot cards are having a surge of popularity at the moment with independent artists using their themed artwork to represent the cards. A standard tarot card deck contains 78 cards consisting of 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana cards. Using our recommended thickness of 14pt, the size of a tarot card tuck box is (W)72x(H)122x(D)28mm.

Playing Card Box Dimensions

We know that not all playing card decks contain the same number of cards. So we’ve created a handy table that explains the depth that your custom playing card box needs to be depending on what paper choice you select and how many cards your deck has. These size guidelines are perfect for creating your own DIY playing card box to test fit sizes before creating a print run of your final playing card tuck boxes.

Don’t forget, when you find your deck size, add 2mm onto the height and width of your playing cards (1mm either side) to find the height and width of the playing card box. For example, poker cards are 64mm x 89mm but to make sure the box isn't too tight, the height and width of your box should be 66mm x 91mm. Then just use the handy chart below to find out the depth of your box.

Number Of Cards 14pt Silk 14pt Silk With Laminate 16pt Silk 16pt Silk With Laminate 18pt Silk 18pt Silk With Laminate
10 5mm 5mm 5.5mm 6mm 6mm 7mm
20 8mm 8.5mm 8.5mm 9.5mm 10mm 11.5mm
25 9mm 10mm 10mm 11.5mm 12.5mm 14mm
30 10.5mm 12mm 12mm 13.5mm 14.5mm 16mm
40 13.5mm 15mm 15mm 17.5mm 18.5mm 22mm
50 16mm 18mm 18.5mm 21.5mm 22.5mm 26mm
52 16.5mm 19mm 19.5mm 22mm 23.5mm 27mm
54 17.5mm 19.5mm 20mm 23mm 24.5mm 28mm
60 19mm 21.5mm 22mm 25mm 27mm 31mm
70 22mm 25mm 26mm 29mm 31mm 35mm
75 23mm 26.5mm 27.5mm 31mm 33mm 37.5mm
78 24mm 27.5mm 28mm 32mm 34mm 39mm
80 25mm 28mm 29mm 33mm 35mm 40mm
90 28mm 31.5mm 32mm 37mm 39.5mm 45mm
100 30.5mm 35mm 35.5mm 40.5mm 43.5mm 49.5mm

What Is The Flat Size Of My Playing Card Box?

Once you have the height and width of your card along with the depth of your custom playing card box, if it's not a standard size, you'll need to work out the flat size, or net of your playing card box so that when it comes to print on a flat sheet, you can give us just the flat height and width of the net and we can then figure out how many we can fit on a single sheet of paper.

To work out the flat size of your box, use this formula:

Flat Height (mm) = Tab* (mm) + Depth Of Deck (mm) + Height Of Playing Card +2mm (mm) + Depth Of Deck (mm) + Height Of Playing Card +2mm (mm)

Flat Width (mm) = Depth Of Deck (mm) + Width Of Playing Card +2mm (mm) + Depth Of Deck (mm)

* The tab is the little part that tucks in at the top of your box to close it. There is no set size for this but we usually recommend 10mm.

Playing Card Tuck Box Templates

To make things simple, and because we’ve already mentioned two of our most popular playing card box dimensions, we’ve gone ahead and created some playing card box templates in standard sizes and thicknesses. These playing card box net templates are for poker cards, playing cards and tarot cards.

Tuck Box Template PDF