Hand forming shuffler with on demand hand delivery
18 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for moving playing cards from a first group of cards into plural hands of cards, wherein each of the hands contains a random arrangement of cards. The apparatus comprises a card receiver for receiving the first group of cards, a single stack of card-receiving compartments generally adjacent to the card receiver, the stack generally vertically movable, an elevator for moving the stack, a card-moving mechanism between the card receiver and the stack, and a microprocessor that controls the card-moving mechanism and the elevator so that an individual card is moved into an identified compartment. The number of compartments receiving cards and the number of cards moved to each compartment may be selected. An apparatus for feeding cards, comprising a surface for supporting a stack of cards, a feed roller with a frictional outer surface, a drive mechanism for causing rotation of the feed roller, a pair of speed-up rollers to advance the cards out of the feed roller, and a clutch mechanism for disengaging the feed roller from the drive mechanism as the card comes into contact with the speed up rollers.
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Citations
61 Claims
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1-35. -35. (Cancelled)
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36. An automatic card shuffling and hand forming device, comprising:
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a card receiver;
a card shuffling mechanism;
a card moving mechanism capable of moving cards from the card receiver into the card shuffling mechanism;
a hand-forming mechanism;
an output tray;
a second card moving mechanism that moves formed hands into the output tray; and
a processor for controlling the operation of the device, and when a first hand of randomized cards is delivered to output tray, and when the hand of cards is manually removed, another hand is automatically delivered to the output tray until either a maximum number of hands is delivered, or a signal is received by the processor to cease delivering hands. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 60)
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51. An automatic card shuffling and hand forming device, comprising:
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a card receiver;
a card shuffling mechanism;
a card moving mechanism capable of moving cards from the card receiver into the card shuffling mechanism;
a hand-forming mechanism;
an output tray;
a second card moving mechanism that moves a formed hand as a group to the output tray;
a dealer input; and
a processor for controlling the operation of the device, wherein a first hand of randomized cards is automatically delivered to the output tray. - View Dependent Claims (52, 53, 61)
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54. A method of randomizing and forming subgroups of cards from a larger group of cards, comprising:
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providing a larger group of cards to be randomized;
providing a card-handling device capable of randomizing cards, forming subgroups of cards and delivering subgroups of cards to an output tray;
inserting the larger group of cards into the device;
randomizing an order of the cards;
forming subgroups of cards; and
automatically delivering a first subgroup of cards as a group to an output tray. - View Dependent Claims (55, 56, 57, 58, 59)
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Specification