I agree that the idea is about entertainment. Yet, I wonder that in order to best entertain, we need to know who we are performing too?
I understand fully why some people may feel 'gambling' routines can leave people feel disconnected. In the UK where I am from, going down the casino or gambling isn't common place so to talk about 'this time when..' or gambling is dissonant with their reality and is slightly more disingenuous and to me can sometimes feel less powerful. I have however, seen many wonderful gambling routines. The Sting is a great example of that.

Perhaps the challenge is to consider how best to create magical moments and meaningful interactions with those we perform to - with cards or beyond.

It will just change, I mean the stuff of card magic in 1920 is totally different to the one 1960 and to the one now and to the one tomorrow, and by stuff I don't necessarly mean material, but presentation, the pacing is different (before everything was slower, now everything fast and quickly).

I think Mr. Woolery hit the nail on the head as far as cards. I've thought the same thing. The "social set" isn't playing Bridge anymore. But some of them are going to Casinos. The millennials are going to Casinos. Cards are huge in Casinos, and people understand them.

I'm not sure I agree with this line of argument, if you have to go to a Casino to handle cards that doesn't mean you handle cards in a social setting at home or a friend's home. When I was a young child we all had decks of cards and our first exposure to magic tricks was often when a friend showed you 'The Four Burglars', or similar simple trick, during a card game session. That doesn't happen so much any more, there simply isn't the same level of opportunity to show impromptu card tricks as there used to be. The interest in cards in far less than in former times, packs could be bought at a multitude of stores while these days you practically have to hunt them out.

Cards have increasingly become the province of gamblers and magicians instead of a normal everyday item in the lives of the majority. How can mere card tricks hope to compete with the real and genuine magic that everyone carries in their pocket, i.e. the internet connected smart phone?

I think this is more of a problem for the future than people are willing to acknowledge. Having said that, cards obviously aren't going to simply die out any time soon but they are becoming less relevant to people's lives.

As for coins, well we are fast becoming a cashless society where even paper money is used less and less, many of us don't even carry coins so I suppose magicians will just have to treat them as props like so called 'billiard balls' and the like, but it'll have a profound effect on that branch of magic if all these items are considered magician's props and hence suspected of being gimmicked.

While it is only anecdotal, nowadays I don't see kids playing with cards or even handling them. While growing up we played with cards a fair amount particularly at a family gathering. Hearts and pinochle in particular and everyone had their own "magic trick" with a deck of cards. Not any more that I see.

I think card tricks will never lose their relevance to the general public. If less people have cards at home the fact that a magician is performing card tricks may make it more of a novelty to some people. Kids today still very much play with cards although they may be in the form of Pokémon or Magic the Gathering, the mechanics are still there of physical cards. Everything comes down to presentation and entertaining. I have seen people amaze with only a stir stick and a paper pastry bag. People still go to casinos and my buddies and I still have home poker games. I think there will be plenty of exposure to cards in various forms to keep them relevant long into the future.