Image capturing card shuffler
View Patent ↗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.
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.
2. The card shuffler apparatus, as in claim 1 , further comprising: a control panel located on said housing, said control panel having keys operatively connected to said controller for selecting operation functions of the card shuffler.
3. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 2 wherein said display means is located on said control panel.
4. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 3 , wherein said controller comprises: a microprocessor, a non-volatile memory storage means for storing images of said playing cards, an image processing means for processing the image data collected by said image capturing means.
5. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 4 , wherein said controller contains software adapted to control the operation of the image capturing means.
6. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 4 , wherein said non-volatile memory storage means has the capacity to store image data of multiple playing cards, for a plurality of playing stations, for a plurality of games.
7. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 6 , wherein said controller contains software adapted to control said display means; said display means adapted to display images of multiple playing cards for a plurality of play stations upon command.
8. The card shuffler of claim 3 , wherein said display means is a liquid crystal display adapted to display card images in conjunction with textual messages.
9. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 1 , wherein said image capturing means is in a camera.
10. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 9 , wherein said camera is a digital camera.
11. The card shuffler apparatus of claim 9 , wherein said camera is a digital video camera.
12. A method for shuffling and dealing playing cards for card games, said method comprising the steps of:
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.
13. The method for shuffling playing cards, as in claim 12 , wherein said processing step further comprises: converting said image from analog to digital form, mapping said converted data for bitmap format, and compressing said image.
14. The method for shuffling playing cards, as in claim 13 , wherein said processing step further includes storing said image data, of multiple playing stations for a plurality of games played, into bitmap images.
15. The method for shuffling playing cards, as in claim 14 , wherein said step of displaying further includes displaying said bitmap images on a liquid crystal display.
16. The method for shuffling playing cards, as in claim 15 , wherein said displaying step further comprises displaying multiple card images, for multiple playing stations for a plurality of games played, for verification of winning hands.