UNIQUE SENSING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR READING PLAYING CARDS

• US 20110042898A1
• Filed: 08/02/2010
• Published: 02/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sg Gaming, Inc. (Scientific Games Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SHFL Entertainment Incorporated (Scientific Games Corporation)
• Inventors: Downs, Justin G. III
• Granted Patent: US 8,150,158 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 273/292
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 1/14 Card dealers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2009/2425 Scanners, e.g. for scanning regular characters

Abstract

A sensing system for determining the rank and suit of playing cards is disclosed. The system includes a sensing module capable of reading a line of data from a printed image, a position sensor and a hardware component that combines the signals from the sensing module and position sensor, converts the signal to binary values and compares the converted signal to stored signals. The comparisons are correlated to identify card rank and Suit. The system can be used in a playing card delivery shoe used to control the game of baccarat. The shoe may be a customary dealing shoe equipped with a sensing module, or may be a mechanized shoe. The mechanized shoe may comprise a) an area for receiving a first set of playing cards useful in the play of the casino table card game of baccarat; b) first card mover that moves playing cards from the first set to a playing card staging area wherein at least one playing card is staged in an order by which playing cards are removed from the first set of and moved to the playing card staging area; c) second playing card mover that moves playing cards from the playing card staging area to a delivery area wherein playing cards removed from the staging area to the delivery shoe are moved in the same order by which playing cards were removed from the first set of playing cards and moved to the playing card staging area; and d) playing card reading sensors that read at least one playing card value of each playing card separately after each playing card has been removed from the area for receiving the first set of playing cards and before removal from the playing card delivery area One exemplary sensing system is a CIS line scanning system with an associated card position sensor and a FPGA hardware element.

Claims

1. A sensing apparatus for the determination of at least one of rank or suit of a playing card comprising:

An imaging array capable of sensing at least an area of a card representing rank and/or suit;

a card position sensor; and

a hardware component capable of receiving signals from the imaging array and the card position sensor, wherein the hardware component forms a vector set from the output from the imaging array and card position sensor, and compares the vector set to known reference vector sets to determine rank and suit of a card.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein vector information is binary information.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hardware component is a FPGA.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hardware component is an ASIC.

5. A card dealing shoe, comprising the sensing apparatus of claim 1.

6. The card dealing show of claim 5, wherein the shoe comprises mechanical card moving elements.

7. The device of claim 1 wherein the card imaging array comprises a camera.

8. The device of claim 7, and further comprising a light source to enhance the camera signal.

9. The device of claim 5, and further comprising a card infeed area for supporting a relatively vertical stack of cards.

10. The device of claim 8, wherein the camera is analog.

11. The device of claim 8, wherein the camera is digital.

12. The device of claim 7, wherein the camera is black and white.

13. A casino table game monitoring system, comprising;

A gaming table with a gaming surface;

A card reading shoe with the card sensing system of claim 1, wherein the card reading shoe has an I/O data port; and

A game controller, wherein the shoe is in information communication with the game controller via the data port.

14. A card handling device comprising the sensing apparatus of claim 1.

15. The card handling device of claim 14, wherein the card handling device comprises a simple shoe.