Method and apparatus for monitoring casinos and gaming
First Claim
1. A card deck reader, comprising:
- a housing having a cradle sized to receive a plurality of playing cards; and
a reading head positioned in the housing to read a respective machine-readable symbol on each of at least two of the playing cards while the at least two of the playing cards remain in the cradle and before a first one of the at least two playing cards is removed from the cradle.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system automatically monitors playing and wagering of a game, including the gaming habits of players and the performance of employees at least partially by tracking the movement of chips bearing identifiers. A chip tray reader images the contents of a chip tray, while a table reader images chips on the gaming table. Chip identifiers may be associated with customer or player identifiers, the customer'"'"'s or player'"'"'s names may or may not be known. The system detects customer or player behavior such as prohibited playing and wagering patterns, and determines the win/loss percentage of the players and the dealer, as well as a number of other statistically relevant measures. The measurements provide automated security and real-time accounting. The measurements also provide a basis for automatically allocating complimentary player benefits.
315 Citations
23 Claims
-
1. A card deck reader, comprising:
-
a housing having a cradle sized to receive a plurality of playing cards; and
a reading head positioned in the housing to read a respective machine-readable symbol on each of at least two of the playing cards while the at least two of the playing cards remain in the cradle and before a first one of the at least two playing cards is removed from the cradle. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A method of automatically reading playing cards, comprising:
-
positioning a plurality of playing cards in a cradle located in a housing to expose a machine-readable symbol carrying portion of each of at least two of the playing cards;
automatically reading a respective machine-readable symbol from the machine-readable symbol carrying portion of each of at least two of the playing cards in the plurality of playing cards while the at least two of the playing cards are supported on the cradle and before a first one of the playing cards is removed from the housing to establish a playing card order; and
removing the plurality of playing cards from the housing such that each of the playing cards retains an order with respect to the other playing cards in the plurality of playing cards corresponding to an order in which the machine-readable symbols were read. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
-
Specification