Wheel of Fortune Tarot Card Meaning

Wheel of Fortune upright

A great wheel turns in the sky, a sphinx balanced on top, a serpent descending one side, and the four winged creatures in the corners. Waite reads it as the constant motion of life held steady by a guiding order. In a reading: circumstances are moving; meet the turn with readiness rather than resistance.

Wheel of Fortune reversed

Waite reversed gives increase, abundance — and superfluity. So even reversed it is not a bad card: things grow, but do not overreach or assume the good run lasts for ever.

A reversed card (What does Upright / reversed card mean?) is one drawn upside-down.

Is Wheel of Fortune a yes or no?

Upright: Leans yes. Yes — the wheel is turning in your favour. Timing matters, so act when the moment comes.

Reversed: Reversed, Wheel of Fortune reads as a soft yes: excess, resisting change, overabundance.

The yes/no lean is BornClock’s reading convention drawn from the card’s meaning — Waite himself did not assign one.

Symbolism in the Wheel of Fortune card

What appears in the 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith picture, as Waite describes it:

• The wheel — Waite: the perpetual motion of life
• Sphinx at the top — Waite: the balance that holds the wheel steady
• Typhon as a serpent on one side — Waite takes this figure from Egyptian symbolism
• Letters TARO / ROTA on the rim — the wheel and the tarot as one
• Four winged creatures in the corners — Waite: from Ezekiel's vision — the guiding intention behind events (also on The World)

In Waite’s own words (paraphrased)

Upright: destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.

Reversed: increase, abundance, superfluity.

Source: A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910, public domain). Some of Waite’s 1910 fortune-telling meanings are old-fashioned; the plain-English reading above is ours.