Method, apparatus and article for determining an initial hand in a playing card game, such as blackjack or baccarat
First Claim
1. An apparatus for automatically determining whether a dealer has an automatically winning hand in a card game played by a number of participants including at least one player and the dealer, the apparatus comprising:
- a playing card reading means for reading identifiers from a number of playing cards before the playing cards are received by respective ones of the participants in the card game;
a processor coupled to the playing card reading means to receive signals indicative of the read identifiers and to receive signals indicative of a number of hands in the card game, the processor further configured to determine a value of a dealer'"'"'s initial hand composed of a first two playing cards dealt to the dealer based on the received signals and to determine whether the determined value of the dealer'"'"'s initial hand is equal to a defined value; and
an indicator coupled to the processor for control thereby to provide a human perceptible indication indicative of the value of the dealer'"'"'s initial hand being equal to the defined value.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and apparatus determine a value of an initial hand of playing cards, such as determining whether a dealer has the value of twenty-one, and/or outcome of a game at some point before the dealer receives a second card. The initial sequence may be read, optically, magnetically or wireless from identifiers on the playing cards, before the playing cards are loaded in a card shoe, while the playing cards reside in the card shoe, or as playing cards are removed from the card shoe. Alternatively, the initial sequence may correspond to a computationally generated sequence, such as a computationally pseudo-random sequence.
269 Citations
41 Claims
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1. An apparatus for automatically determining whether a dealer has an automatically winning hand in a card game played by a number of participants including at least one player and the dealer, the apparatus comprising:
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a playing card reading means for reading identifiers from a number of playing cards before the playing cards are received by respective ones of the participants in the card game;
a processor coupled to the playing card reading means to receive signals indicative of the read identifiers and to receive signals indicative of a number of hands in the card game, the processor further configured to determine a value of a dealer'"'"'s initial hand composed of a first two playing cards dealt to the dealer based on the received signals and to determine whether the determined value of the dealer'"'"'s initial hand is equal to a defined value; and
an indicator coupled to the processor for control thereby to provide a human perceptible indication indicative of the value of the dealer'"'"'s initial hand being equal to the defined value. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method for automatically determining whether a dealer has an automatically winning hand in a card game played by a number of participants including at least one player and the dealer, the method comprising:
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reading identifiers from a number of playing cards before the playing cards are received by respective ones of the participants in the card game;
determining a value of a dealer'"'"'s initial hand composed of a first two playing cards dealt to the dealer based at least in part on the identifiers read from the number of playing cards before the playing cards are received by respective ones of the participants in the card game and at least in part on a number of hands participating in the card game;
determining whether the determined value of the dealer'"'"'s initial hand is equal to a defined value; and
providing a human perceptible indication indicative of the value of the dealer'"'"'s initial hand being equal to the defined value. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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26. A method for determining a value of an initial hand of playing cards, the method comprising:
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determining a number of participants in the card game to include at least one player and one dealer; and
determining a number of playing cards necessary to provide each participant with an initial hand of playing cards according to a set of rules for the card game;
determining an initial sequence of the number of playing cards by reading identifiers from the number of playing cards; and
determining the value of at least one initial hand of playing cards dealt from the initial sequence. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A system for determining a value of an initial hand of playing cards, the system comprising:
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means for determining the number of initial hands for a current card game;
a housing to hold at least the number of initial hands for the current card game, the cards selectively removable from the housing;
means for reading an indicia from at least each of the number of cards forming the initial hands, the means for reading positioned to read at least the number of initial hands within the housing;
means for processing an amount of data acquired from reading the indicia; and
means for determining the value of at least one initial hand before all of the initial hands have been dealt. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
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Specification