Will you buy a personal / portable / home use shuffler?

A friend of mine invites me to invest in making an automatic shuffler for home / personal use. It could be like Shuffle Master’s Ace shuffler, but less powerful / functional. The specs would include shuffling cards and dispensing n cards per user input. For example, one could specify 7 cards for Pai Gow Poker or Break Poker, 5-2-2-2… for Texas Holdem or 2 cards per hand for BJ. It will be portable, may be smaller than the casino grade. Will you buy it? How much will you be willing to pay for it? I think every game designer can use one, so there is a market for at least 100 pcs. :-)))

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I think Shufflemaster and the Asian companies (Toshiba, Samsung) will lock this market up for the casinos. For the home market, others have a head start - if it's a market at all.
The patents are pretty much owned by others, so if it is a surprise hit, you can't fight them out.
There are many home shufflers on the market (battery-powered), but without the features you'd add.
Most home games the players are happy to self-shuffle.

I can't imagine why I would. Robo-shufflers in casinos are grief enough. And having an idea about how much they cost... def no.

Quote: Paigowdan

Most home games the players are happy to self-shuffle.

Or atleast content with it. The idea of a home shuffler reminds me of a Brooke Shields movie in which all the poker players sat at the poker table shirtless since they were all former professional magicians. Most home games are not quite that serious and I doubt there would be all that much of a market for a cheap and perhaps somewhat shoddy shuffler. After all, the time it takes to shuffle is conversation and pretzels time which is usually highly valued in home games.

So I'd pass on any such investment, even if you were not buying a patent infringement lawsuit.

You could have a market in private clubs that offer dealers, as in Ohio there are poker clubs that have dealers and do everything they can to look like a casino-style poker room. I don't see much use for one otherwise.

Don't invest in this. I can't see it being able to turn a profit for the reasons stated by other posters.