PLAYING CARDS AND SYSTEM
With conventional playing cards, when a game player holds together cards (the hand) in his/her hand during a game, if the cards are held shifted from each other, the indexes of all the cards in the corners thereof can be seen. If someone commits cheating (peeking) for the purpose of fraud, such third person can know all the cards held by the game player. Playing cards of the present invention can prevent fraudulent acts such as peeking in card games. Playing cards ( 1 ) form a single deck with fifty two cards, and are made up of two types of cards, namely, cards ( 1 a ) having an index ( 2 ), which indicates a numerical value that represents a rank, only in the upper left and lower right portions thereof, and cards ( 1 b ) having the index ( 2 ) only in the upper right and lower left portions thereof.
1 . Playing cards that form either a single deck or a plurality of decks of cards, wherein the cards are made up of a first group that is a group of cards, each card of the first group having an index only in upper left and lower right portions thereof, the index indicating at least a numerical value that represents a rank of the card, and a second group that is a group of cards, each card of the second group having the index only in upper right and lower left portions thereof, and wherein a plurality of cards with at least a same rank are divided into the two groups such that each of said plurality of cards belong to one of the groups.
2 . A table game system comprising:
playing cards that form either a single deck or a plurality of decks of cards, wherein the cards are made up of a first group that is a group of cards, each card of the first group having an index only in upper left and lower right portions thereof, the index indicating at least a numerical value that represents a rank of the card, and a second group that is a group of cards, each card of the second group having the index only in upper right and lower left portions thereof, and wherein a plurality of cards with at least a same rank are divided into the two groups such that each of said plurality of cards belong to one of the groups; and
an inspection apparatus for the playing cards,
the inspection apparatus including:
a memory that stores suits and ranks of cards constituting the first group that is a group of cards, each card of the first group having the index only in the upper left and lower right portions thereof, and suits and ranks of cards constituting the second group that is a group of cards, each card of the second group having the index in the upper right and lower left portions thereof;
a detection apparatus that includes a first camera for acquiring an image of the upper left or lower right portion of each card and a second camera for acquiring an image of the upper right or lower left portion of each card, and detects the absence of the index or acquires information on the index;
a determination apparatus that compares an actual position of the index of each card read by the detection apparatus with a predetermined position where the index of the card should be present by using information stored in the memory, thereby making a determination; and
an output means of outputting a result of the determination made by the determination apparatus.