Image capturing card shuffler
First Claim
1. A card shuffling apparatus comprising:
- a housing, a card input receptacle located on said housing adapted to receive at least one deck of unshuffled playing cards, a shuffling device adapted to receive the cards from said card input receptacle and for selectively shuffling the cards, and a controller disposed within said housing, an image capturing means disposed within said housing for capturing image data of a playing card, said image data being captured after the shuffling of the cards but prior to individual cards being moved to an output bin adapted to receive shuffled playing cards, and a display means located on said housing for displaying images captured by said image capturing means.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention features a playing card shuffling device, which through the use of a small image capturing means, captures an image of the face value of each card and stores the image in memory. This image is sorted in the format of a bitmap image. The operator of the machine would be able to recall through the use of a key pad, the images of the cards that comprised the individual hands in the previous game. This feature allows for verification of a winning hand after a game has been completed. Thereby, a quick recheck of hands before paying a winning hand is performed. The face value of each card is determined by character recognition software. These card values would be stored in memory for archival access for use in monitoring the randomness of the game and determining the number of winning hands.
205 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A card shuffling apparatus comprising:
- a housing, a card input receptacle located on said housing adapted to receive at least one deck of unshuffled playing cards, a shuffling device adapted to receive the cards from said card input receptacle and for selectively shuffling the cards, and a controller disposed within said housing, an image capturing means disposed within said housing for capturing image data of a playing card, said image data being captured after the shuffling of the cards but prior to individual cards being moved to an output bin adapted to receive shuffled playing cards, and a display means located on said housing for displaying images captured by said image capturing means.
- View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for shuffling and dealing playing cards for card games, said method comprising the steps of:
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a) causing unshuffled cards to be placed into an card input receptacle of an automatic card shuffler;
b) causing the card shuffler to be activated such that the cards are shuffled;
c) individually moving the shuffled cards to a card output bin;
d) capturing an image of each of said playing cards before each card is delivered to the output bin of said card shuffler;
e) storing the captured images;
f) processing said captured images; and
g) displaying said processed, captured images on display means incorporated on said card shuffler. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification