Do shuffling machines has any optical capabilty?

I play 2 games, craps and Let-it-ride, for 95% of my casino fun.
I recently heard a dealer mention that the shuffler can take a shuffled deck and return it to A-K, suited order.
Is this true? And the obvious corollary to this, is that if it can do that, then it can alter the randomness of the deal.
Let-it-ride would be particularly easy to alter the odds due to the cards being dealt 3-at-a-time, the number of people
at the table impacts the results much less.

Can you (please) put my mind at ease, because I REALLY don't like the idea of the house being able to alter the odds
(particularly since the games are already tilted their way)

Love your site!
Thanks

Some auto shufflers have optical capability: they can read the cards as they are shuffling them (to check preshuffled decks, or to check for missing cards). There are baccarat shoes that can read invisible ink barcodes on the back of cards as they are dealt out to prevent card switching.

However, I haven't heard of any shufflers that can intentionally re-order the deck. For what legal reason would a casino want to do that? That sounds like bad business.

Quote: dwheatley

Some auto shufflers have optical capability: they can read the cards as they are shuffling them (to check preshuffled decks, or to check for missing cards). There are baccarat shoes that can read invisible ink barcodes on the back of cards as they are dealt out to prevent card switching.

However, I haven't heard of any shufflers that can intentionally re-order the deck. For what legal reason would a casino want to do that? That sounds like bad business.

You haven't seen them? They're getting to be pretty common. I'm staying at Valley Forge Resort & Casino right now, & they have them. they run the cards through and reorder the decks when they're switched out so that they can easily be verified to be correct & complete once they're removed from play.

deleted

Ok, so now we know they "can" do it. SOMEONE please tell me they "won't" be doing it.
I just don't like the possibilities that this brings along for even "slightly" altering the odds.

(It just so happens that the unnamed casino in A/C dealt me a massive beat down with just enough teasers to keep us interested).
For instance both my friend and I hit "almost" straight flushes with the final card being correct-suited but off by 1 digit).
(What are the odds of hitting 2 hands like that in a 7 hour session??)

What reason?? $$.
Only bad business if they got caught (though, admittedly, the stakes would be very high for them in that case)
I also wonder why most dealers that I've run across do exactly 1 shuffle before putting them in the machine.
I have been told that it's policy (and I'm sure the stock answer is to keep dealing as many hands as possible).

Quote: rsin24

I recently heard a dealer mention that the shuffler can take a shuffled deck and return it to A-K, suited order.
Is this true?

Yup

Quote: rsin24

And the obvious corollary to this, is that if it can do that, then it can alter the randomness of the deal.

Well, yes and no. In shuffle mode it doesn't spit out the cards 3 at a time.

Quote: rsin24

Let-it-ride would be particularly easy to alter the odds due to the cards being dealt 3-at-a-time, the number of people
at the table impacts the results much less.

Mississippi Stud would be worse because the dealer gets cards first, thus the shuffler could always know the other cards that would comprise a hand.

Quote: rsin24

Can you (please) put my mind at ease, because I REALLY don't like the idea of the house being able to alter the odds
(particularly since the games are already tilted their way)

I think there are 2 ways to look at it.

1 - Why, since as you already noted the odds are in the house favor, would the casino risk their gaming license to cheat? And why would Shufflemaster risk having to pull all of their shufflers out of casinos if it was found they could be rigged to cheat? Casinos have a built in edge, and they had it long before sort-capable shufflers came along, so why risk a multi-million dollar operation to cheat you at a carnival (or other) game?

2 - If you feel strongly that the game is fixed, don't play it.

As a dealer I've heard many theories from players about how the shuffle machines are rigged but I've seen no evidence of that sort of thing. The sorting capability is there to save time. Because it uses optical character recognition it can also notice if a card is missing, different, or inserted backwards, which contributes to game integrity/security.

A lot of players seem convinced that the casino is ready to cheat them at any opportunity, but my experience has been just the opposite, casinos try as hard as they can to offer a fair game because they can still make money from that, but being shut down for cheating would cost them way more in the long run.

I guess what I'd really like someone to say is something like this:

"It is physically impossible for the optical part of the shuffler to be enabled when in 'shuffle mode'."
As long that is a FACT, I'd be OK with it.

Thanks all for posting.

Quote: rsin24

Ok, so now we know they "can" do it. SOMEONE please tell me they "won't" be doing it.
I just don't like the possibilities that this brings along for even "slightly" altering the odds.

(It just so happens that the unnamed casino in A/C dealt me a massive beat down with just enough teasers to keep us interested).
For instance both my friend and I hit "almost" straight flushes with the final card being correct-suited but off by 1 digit).
(What are the odds of hitting 2 hands like that in a 7 hour session??)

Am I reading correctly that you managed to stay interested in a let-it-ride game for 7 consecutive hours? There should be a prize just for that:-)

Getting a 5 card flush in that game is rare enough, let alone getting two near straight-flushes. Still, the odds of getting specifically 7910JQ suited are exactly the same as getting 8910JQ suited. Given your 4 consecutive suited cards, there are 2 outs to the SF, and two outs to the near miss. So the odds of the two near misses aren't any worse than the odds of hitting twice in 7 hours.

In theory, I do agree with you that a game like LIR or MS stud (or any game where the house doesn't take cards) would be the easiest to manipulate since the number of players matters less when the dealer's cards aren't affected.

Quote: rdw4potus

Am I reading correctly that you managed to stay interested in a let-it-ride game for 7 consecutive hours? There should be a prize just for that:-)

I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with that. LiR is probably my least favorite carnival game to deal.

Quote: rsin24

I also wonder why most dealers that I've run across do exactly 1 shuffle before putting them in the machine.
I have been told that it's policy (and I'm sure the stock answer is to keep dealing as many hands as possible).

That's exactly right. They say 'do 1 riffle' so that's what we do. Doing anything else would get the dealer in trouble. As for 'hands per hour' I don't know that it's so much of a concern on carnivals, I've never been sweated about the pace I've dealt at.

Quote: dwheatley

However, I haven't heard of any shufflers that can intentionally re-order the deck. For what legal reason would a casino want to do that? That sounds like bad business.

Its simply the continued trend to use automation to decrease the number of dealers on the casino floor. Presently, most casinos "prove up" retired card decks by taking them to a different table and having a gang of dealers sort the decks into official order. This end of shift, end of day (Yes, some casinos do close) procedure takes time and resources. So its a quick way now to use the optical feature on the shuffler to do a quick sort and prove up the decks that were used as being all present or accounted for. Now you can just ship all those old decks to the gift shop but don't have to worry that someone has been filching a few aces. Saves hours of rewinding the tapes to try to spot who is doing what.

Quote: FleaStiff

Its simply the continued trend to use automation to decrease the number of dealers on the casino floor. Presently, most casinos "prove up" retired card decks by taking them to a different table and having a gang of dealers sort the decks into official order.

Then why not have a separate deck ordering machine at that table ?

Quote: rsin24

Ok, so now we know they "can" do it. SOMEONE please tell me they "won't" be doing it.
I just don't like the possibilities that this brings along for even "slightly" altering the odds.

(It just so happens that the unnamed casino in A/C dealt me a massive beat down with just enough teasers to keep us interested).
For instance both my friend and I hit "almost" straight flushes with the final card being correct-suited but off by 1 digit).
(What are the odds of hitting 2 hands like that in a 7 hour session??)

PM me for the name of a friendly casino in Las Vegas that I am a host for. We give 3 near misses in an hour.
You will lose as much, but with 50% more excitement !

Quote: MangoJ

Then why not have a separate deck ordering machine at that table ?

If a guy doesn't cheat on his wife then why doesn't he hire someone to follow him around all day with a camera filming every moment to prove it? Some would consider that overkill to prove something that doesn't require proving.

If you look at what's at stake, it doesn't make sense for casinos to try to cheat you with a rigged shuffler. Wild stuff happens with cards. I once dealt 3 straight flushes on 3CP in one push at the table. 2 of them in consecutive hands. Mathematically improbable? Sure. Impossible? Nope.

Bottom line: If you really believe the shufflers are rigged then don't play the game. Enough people do this and I'm sure hand shuffling will make a return or the game will go away.

I perfectly agree with you, MM. The casino would have its licence on stake just to gain some peanuts - which is ridiculous.

But I don't think regular players care about this logic. All they want is a pleasant experience. And if the introduced sorting mechanism feeds their paranoia it boils down to a management decision.

Quote: rsin24

Ok, so now we know they "can" do it. SOMEONE please tell me they "won't" be doing it.
I just don't like the possibilities that this brings along for even "slightly" altering the odds.

At Indian casinos I only play poker, because they regulate themselves. Poker is played against other players and the casino takes theirs right off the top.It's all up front, no mystery. If you're that afraid of the casino beating you out of money illegally, why not switch to poker or stop gambling? If I was this paranoid I wouldn't gamble at all.

We lose because the games are designed that way. No need to cheat.

As my esteemed friends have said, "Get up from ya seat, and vote with ya feet!"

I would say that every casino in Vegas would be dealing PA Rules BJ by hand and out of a single-deck if all BJ players adamantly refused to play out of circumstances that were any worse for them. I imagine that the exercise of BS, in and of itself, would quite possibly warrant a back-off under these circumstances, if you altered your bets at all, but they'd be dealing it...or shut down BJ.

The casino gives players the Rules that the players seem to tolerate, nothing better or worse. They are there to maximize their revenue/profits, and if it takes more liberal Rules to do that (even with a lower HE), then that is what will happen.

Why is everyone hating upon, LiR, by the way? Deal me a Flush or better, start it out with three to a SF, if you can, you'll love the tip! The player also controls the pace, which is nice, and can be amusing. I sometimes take a few seconds on an obvious decision for comedic value, "G-----n it!!! It's four low cards, spread, and in three suits, just take the bet back!!! What are you even thinking about!?"

Quote: texasplumr

Quote: rsin24

Ok, so now we know they "can" do it. SOMEONE please tell me they "won't" be doing it.
I just don't like the possibilities that this brings along for even "slightly" altering the odds.

At Indian casinos I only play poker, because they regulate themselves. Poker is played against other players and the casino takes theirs right off the top.It's all up front, no mystery. If you're that afraid of the casino beating you out of money illegally, why not switch to poker or stop gambling? If I was this paranoid I wouldn't gamble at all.

We lose because the games are designed that way. No need to cheat.

But...but...but...what if you have eight hands at a table with one of those shuffle machines, and five of those hands are actually casino employees posing as regular local poker players?

(No disrespect intended, I'm just poking fun at the notion that the House needs to cheat.)

Quote: Mission146

But...but...but...what if you have eight hands at a table with one of those shuffle machines, and five of those hands are actually casino employees posing as regular local poker players?

And if they do ? Unless they are cheating (switching cards or colluding) it shouldn't be of your concern whose money is on the table.

Quote: MangoJ

I perfectly agree with you, MM. The casino would have its licence on stake just to gain some peanuts - which is ridiculous.

But I don't think regular players care about this logic. All they want is a pleasant experience. And if the introduced sorting mechanism feeds their paranoia it boils down to a management decision.

I think it also comes down to not wanting to take responsibility for losses. I see players grasping for reasons why they lost, and the shuffle machines are just one of them. I think it's very important for ones mental health to only gamble with money you can afford to lose, both financially and emotionally. I've actually had mature men leave my table in tears over their losses.

As for a different machine, I think it comes down to cost for the house. The shuffler has the capability so they use it. I can see your point about player peace of mind but I don't think that is as big a concern as the cost of the equipment.

Quote: MangoJ

And if they do ? Unless they are cheating (switching cards or colluding) it shouldn't be of your concern whose money is on the table.

I was just joking about the Shuffle machine being rigged, or rather, the notion thereof. My point was that the Shuffle Machine (knowing the position of the casino's players) could deal them all good inside hands, if not good final hands, guaranteed.

Quote: Mission146

I was just joking about the Shuffle machine being rigged, or rather, the notion thereof. My point was that the Shuffle Machine (knowing the position of the casino's players) could deal them all good inside hands, if not good final hands, guaranteed.

That's another hole in the "The Shuffler is Rigged" theories. How exactly would the shuffler know how many players there were and where they were sitting?

I've seen it suggested that someone monitoring the Eye in the Sky is controlling them, but the problem is there's no method for putting them on a network to be controlled. The only input port I've seen on them is for USB, and that's covered by a sticker, that's put there by gaming, that falls apart if you tamper with it.

The machine would not only be ignorant of the number of players, the number of circles with bets, but also ignorant of the decisions made by some of those idiotic players including those that want to hit 21.

Quote: FleaStiff

also ignorant of the decisions made by some of those idiotic players including those that want to hit 21.

Aren't we talking only about games where those decisions affect bets and not the cards? LIR was mentioned specifically...

Yep, they have a SORT feature. I think the casino should be more worried about this than the player. Why would a casino ever deal out a Royal Flush if they can control the outcome. Nobody would be that surprised if a Royal had never been dealt in a couple years. Or Straight Flushes for that matter. Yet, where I work, at least half a dozen have gone out in a year. Considering it (Mississippi Stud) doesn't get considerable play, that's probably reasonable.

But I would imagine, the ShuffleMaster techs could put some extra programming in the machines that use the sort feature. Thus, they could collude with a player to take advantage, not getting anything crazy, just a lot of trips and two pair with an occasional full house (on Mississippi).

Quote: FleaStiff

The machine would not only be ignorant of the number of players, the number of circles with bets, but also ignorant of the decisions made by some of those idiotic players including those that want to hit 21.

Absolutely. And then there's the matter of letting a player cut the deck...

Quote: rdw4potus

Aren't we talking only about games where those decisions affect bets and not the cards? LIR was mentioned specifically...

It applies to all games that use a shuffler, but if the shufflers were rigged they would have the biggest potential to cheat the players at carnival games.

Quote: ewjones080

But I would imagine, the ShuffleMaster techs could put some extra programming in the machines that use the sort feature.

While I wouldn't call it impossible, you'd likely have to be a much higher level employee than a tech to do such a thing. I doubt any of their techs have the programming capacity for such a thing, and again, how does the shuffler know when to pull it's trick? I can pretty much guarantee that a shuffler that is continuously spitting out trips or better is going to be pulled off the floor and inspected, and then the plot would be discovered and likely traced right back to who ever was responsible. It probably wouldn't be any harder than running a check sum test on the code that was on the machine and matching it to what's supposed to be in use.

I think these machines can have an algorithm it's a machine therefore it can be programmed. I see this as a huge potential for the casinos in limit or no limit gaming adding more pots, more rake per hour with the appearance of randomness and it's impossible to prove. Cards are sorted optically one by one then placed as they chose from 52 then minus 18 +3 with gaps as burns then the final 2 cards to complete the 5 card flop. It can then dictate any flop it wan'ts such as 8910-or pairs such as 55-2 suited to promote pots and action for more rake per hour and more re buys from unlucky seats sorta... The hole in this is 9 people could be on the table but 7 are only signed in. I often see dealers checking everyone in with players cards and the rest as guest, the programming doesn't care as long it can subtract the players to select flops determined same with the hole cards! It probably has 5-6-7-8-9 handed algorithms all pre determined throughout a set of series of hand flops such as blank-BB flush flush-trips-pair pair etc... I would like to think this is just a mechanical machine that moves the cards around as they fall but it might not be the case. The casino wouldn't dare cheat for even 10,000 or 100,000 short term but if this adds a fun element to the players and a 2% edge long term to the casino then of course they would do it as it's impossible to prove. Hey even video poker is kinda rigged as it has an algorithm! This is all cyclical long term over 1,000,000 hands+ be it video poker,slots or Live poker. I don't know about no limit but it could have the same function to promote action,rebuys and rake per hour. It seems overly complicated, but in this fashion Shuffle machines would be considered unfair and rigged. Say 8 players signed in 8 players in action 52-16 +3 3 gapped burns and then the final 2 it could figure this easy being pre programmed along with second best hands,winning hands and hands made to chase such as a9 suited-10 j-suited-AA with a board of k-5 2-q-k with 2 hearts with the winner being dealt qk off as the winner with a full house determined before hand. I would consider this undetectable cheating. It promotes action,rebuys and seems random and would give the casino a 2 to 4% edge over skilled players.

You think some very odd things and you are replying to a several year old thread.

Patent US6299167 ­ Playing card shuffling machine ­ Google Patents

"Another problem area suffered by both manual and automated shuffling techniques is associated with having concentrated sequences of cards. These concentrations or “slugs” most often occur with respect to cards having a value of 10, such as in playing blackjack. A skilled card counting gambler can take advantage of such card slugs to turn the odds against the casino and in favor of the card counter. Such slugs also indicate the failure of prior art shufflers to in fact effectively rearrange the order of cards in a deck or decks being shuffled. Thus there remains a strong need for improved shuffling machines which can effectively reorder a deck or series of decks."

The upshot of this is that it is now possible to "arrange" a shoe of cards in non-random order. My guess is that the shoe is arranged in an order that reduces variability.

If this is true, you should see very few winning runs by players and many bust hands of 12 - 16.

Cutting doesn't make any difference because cutting doesn't change the card sequence in any significant way. Number of players doesn't matter either.

It seems to me that this year there has been much less variability in blackjack and (in my case; an unusual number of losing sessions)

Full reference: Search Google patents US6299167

Quote: MonkeyMonkey

They say 'do 1 riffle' so that's what we do. Doing anything else would get the dealer in trouble.

I was once at a table with a very friendly dealer who was stuck with very unfriendly cards. As he riffled the deck, someone said, "Just do an extra shuffle this time, OK?"

He replied, "Can't." But, just then someone who had ordered a drink pushed a nickel out on the table and asked for singles. "Well, maybe I can...," he said, at which time he put the deck back in the discard shoe (which he didn't need to do), cut the white chips the player requested, then fussed with the chips in his tray for a few seconds. "Since the cards went back into the shoe, I have to shuffle them again... Oh, well!" We all chuckled at his efforts to accommodate the request for a second riffle before putting the cards back into the shuffle machine.

Monkey, would you have been able to do something like this dealer? Even if it was only once in a while?