Countries like Thailand do not condone the selling of playing cards and they are quite difficult to find and comparatively very expensive... this they probably feel will discourage gambling. Tarot cards here are none existent and even the fortune tellers use standard cards in the main. I agree it is more of a western item.
Are we talking about family/children's games such as snap, happy families, donkey? or the collections of cards that came out based around comparison [I forget what they were called] ie car sets were based on engine size, torque ratios, top speed etc.
Adult playing cards have always sold, although not as well as they used to do when censorship was rife.