Card shuffling apparatus and card handling device

• US 9,908,034 B2
• Filed: 05/26/2016
• Issued: 03/06/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LNW Gaming Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Bally Gaming Incorporated (Scientific Games Corporation)
• Inventors: Downs, Justin G., Roberts, James D., Zvercov, Vladislav, Kulakkunnath, Kapilkumar N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chawan, Sheela C
• Application Number:
  US15/165,973
• Publication Number:
  US 20160271488A1
• Time in Patent Office: 649 Days
• Field of Search: 382100, 382181, 273149 R, 273149 P, 273309, 273292, 273303, 273274, 463 2, 463 11- 42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 1/12 Card shufflers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 1/14 Card dealers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2009/2419 Optical
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2009/2425 Scanners, e.g. for scanning regular characters
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/76 Addressed sensors, e.g. MOS or CMOS sensors

Abstract

A device for forming a random set of playing cards comprises a card in-feed area, a shuffling system, a card removal area, and a card reading system located within the device, the card reading system employing a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor and a hardware component, the hardware component capable of converting signals from the CMOS sensor into vector sets and comparing the vector sets to known vectors to determine rank and suit.

Claims

1. A card-handling apparatus for determining at least one of rank and suit of playing cards, comprising:

a motive apparatus positioned and configured to move playing cards past an image capture device to generate the card face data;

the image capture device comprising an illuminator positioned and configured to illuminate faces of playing cards moved therepast with electromagnetic radiation and a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor positioned to receive reflected electromagnetic radiation from the faces to generate card face data;

logic circuitry operatively connected to the image capture device, the logic circuitry configured to convert the card face data into binary values; and

a nontransitory memory device operatively connected to the logic circuitry, the nontransitory memory device storing reference data representing a correlation between binary values of card face data and at least one of a rank and suit corresponding to each respective binary value of the card face data;

wherein the logic circuitry is configured to compare the binary values from generated card face data to the reference data and determine at least one of the rank and suit of each playing card moved past the image capture device.

2. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the reference data represents the correlation between binary values of card face data and both of the rank and suit corresponding to each respective binary value of the card face data and the logic circuitry is configured to compare the binary values from the generated card face data to the reference data and determine both the rank and suit of each playing card moved past the image capture device.

3. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the CMOS image sensor is configured to generate the card face data as a vector set.

4. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the CMOS image sensor comprises a black and white CMOS sensor.

5. The card-handling apparatus of claim 4, wherein the image sensor outputs grayscale values.

6. The card-handling apparatus of claim 5, wherein the grayscale values are in at least one of an 8 and 16 bit format.

7. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the CMOS image sensor is a color sensor.

8. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a card-receiving area sized and shaped to support a set of playing cards and enable the motive apparatus to move cards from the card-receiving area to an interior of the card-handling apparatus, wherein a geometrically central axis of the card-receiving area is oriented at an angle with respect to vertical when the card-handling apparatus is supported on a level surface.

9. The card-handling apparatus of claim 8, wherein the geometrically central axis of the card-receiving area is oriented at between about 3°

and about 8°

with respect to vertical when the card-handling apparatus is supported on a level surface.

10. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the image capture device is configured to intermittently activate in response to a signal received from a card-presence sensor operatively connected to the image capture device and to deactivate when a signal is not received from the card-presence sensor.

11. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the image capture device is configured to be continuously active when the card-handling apparatus is in use.

12. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the logic circuitry comprises at least one of a field-programmable gate array (FGPA) and an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).

13. The card-handling apparatus of claim 1, wherein the illuminator comprises a light-emitting diode (LED).

14. A method of using a card-handling apparatus to determine at least one of rank and suit of playing cards, comprising:

moving playing cards past an image capture device utilizing a motive apparatus;

activating an illuminator of the image capture device to illuminate faces of playing cards moved by the motive apparatus past the image capture device with electromagnetic radiation;

generating card face data utilizing a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor of the image capture device from reflected electromagnetic radiation from the faces of the playing cards;

converting the card face data into binary values utilizing logic circuitry operatively connected to the image capture device;

comparing the binary values from generated card face data to reference data stored in a nontransitory memory device operatively connected to the logic circuitry, the reference data representing a correlation between binary values of card face data and at least one of a rank and suit corresponding to each respective binary value of the card face data; and

determining at least one of the rank and suit of each playing card moved past the image capture device utilizing the logic circuitry.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein generating the card face data utilizing the CMOS image sensor comprises generating the card face data as a vector set.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein generating the card face data utilizing the CMOS image sensor comprises generating grayscale values.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein activating the illuminator of the image capture device and generating card face data utilizing the CMOS image sensor comprise intermittently activating the image capture device in response to a signal received from a card-presence sensor operatively connected to the image capture device and deactivating the image capture device when a signal is not received from the card-presence sensor.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein activating the illuminator of the image capture device and generating card face data utilizing the CMOS image sensor comprise maintaining the image capture device continuously active when the card-handling apparatus is in use.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein activating the illuminator of the image capture device comprises activating a light-emitting diode (LED).

20. The method of claim 14, wherein activating the illuminator of the image capture device comprises activating a green light source.