I was very impressed with this deck and highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a quality deck.

I recently bought several decks of the Rider Waite Tarot for a class I am teaching. I choose this deck for students because the images are a big part of understanding the meaning of each card and the Rider Wait images are by far the easiest to understand. Do not mistake my description of the images being "easiest to understand" as a statement that this deck is a "beginners" deck, I've been reading Tarot for around 20 years and still learn from this deck every time I use it.
In my oppinion, the Rider Waite Tarot deck is the best all around tool for Tarot divination.

The reason this is the "world's most popular deck" is because Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith were both gifted people. Waite knew much about the Tarot and Smith was a gifted artist. This was my first deck--many years ago--and I've since had to get another deck. Also, the "Original Rider Waite Tarot" is good as well.

This was the first deck to have full pictures on all of the Minor Arcana cards. Before this deck, the Minor Arcana only had symbols on the cards (i.e. like the 5 of clubs has 5 clubs in a pattern on a playing card deck). In addition, this is the deck many artists have looked up to when making a new deck.

The pictures in this deck help to learn the meanings of each card. Also, it's somewhat cheaper than many other decks out there. I have numerous Tarot decks, but when I need to know something very important this is the deck I always turn to. Also, this is the deck I usually use to read for people. I enjoy collecting Tarot decks and seeing what they have to tell me, but if I need accuracy all the time then this is the deck I know to use. I love this deck more than any other and I highly recommend it!

This is the deck I learned on. I like it that all the cards have pictoral symbolism on them. Great deck to start your studies with before you move on to a deck you find intuitively and artisticly inspiring.

I purchased this deck and the Idiot's Guide to Tarot as a gift. The Idiot's Guide uses the Rider-Waite deck in it's examples, so the 2 go together really well. There are a lot of decks out there, but this one is great for people who are new to tarot. The symbolism can be readily seen, both by the reader & the read-ee; additionally, because it is used by so many people, it is easier to get pointers from more experienced users. My partner loved the gift.......