Mechanized Playing Card Dealing Shoe with Automatic Jam Recovery

Abstract

A distinct dealing shoe having no shuffling functionality receives a shuffled, randomized or ordered group of cards. The cards may be mechanically moved one at a time from a receiving area for the deck to a buffer area where more than one card is temporarily stored. The cards in the buffer area are then mechanically moved to a card delivery area where the cards may be manually removed, one at a time, by a dealer. The cards are read one at a time inside of the dealing shoe, either before the buffer area or after leaving the buffer area, but preferably before the cards are being manually removed from a card delivery area. Information from the card reading may be used for game tracking, hand tracking, player information, and other security issues at casino table card games.

1 . A playing card delivery shoe from which cards may be dealt comprising:
 a) an area for receiving a first set of cards;   b) first card mover that moves cards from the first set to a card staging area wherein at least one card is staged in an order by which cards are removed from the first set of cards and moved to the card staging area;   c) second card mover that moves cards from the card staging area to a delivery area wherein cards removed from the staging area to the delivery shoe are moved in the same order by which cards were removed from the first set of cards and moved to the card staging area; and   d) card-reading sensors that read at least one element of information of card rank, card suit or card value of each card separately after each card has been removed from the area for receiving the first set of cards and before removal from the card delivery area.