My uncle and his wife introduced the game to me and my wife in April 2019 and it became an instant hit in our family. The game is always interesting and often reaches a level of excitement I seldom see in any of the games I play. It is one of my absolute favorite games to play - and I play a lot of different card and board games. Canasta is a card game that was created by two bridge players in 1939 and was extremely popular at the end of the 1940s, 'In the peak year of the game one hundred million packs of cards were sold' - When Canasta Was the Craze, article from 1952.