We’re just back from a one-week tour of Europe, visiting our dealers. One new development from AniMazing, our German distributor, is the new “Open Concept” table that is mass-produced as a Shuffle Tech ready table. It comes with cut-outs for the Shuffle Tech machine, as well as a chip tray and a drop box. (Inserts are included for customers that don’t want to install each feature.)

Shuffle Tech is looking forwarding to seeing as many of our customers as possible at the Poker Palooza at WSOP, from July 2-5. We’re in booth 737 right between the two main doors to the Main Event.

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Casinos enforce strict security procedures, employ trained staff, and deploy numerous surveillance cameras to protect the casino and honest players from cheats. Regretfully, most private hosts lack the information and training to implement standard casino security procedures at home games, without which they are exposing their players to skilled cheats and compromising the integrity of their games. While many games are casual and played among friends, serious games among serious players demand implementation and enforcement of the same security procedures followed by casinos.

One major weakness of private games is the shuffling and handling of cards between games. A two-deck rotation is common, with one deck in play and the other being shuffled by one of the players. For obvious reasons, no casino would ever allow players to handle the cards between games. Nearly every casino uses automatic card shufflers that eliminate the possibility of human error or cheating. Despite costs ranging from $12-$22K, casinos can afford these machines because they speed the games and increase revenues.

The recently introduced Shuffle Tech ST-1000 solves this problem for private hosts. Shuffle Tech is the first company to offer fully automatic card shufflers for under $500 ($600 with a flush mounting kit). The Shuffle Tech machine is very effective, faster, and more secure than hand shuffling by players. A press of the “3” button will complete an RRSR 3-riffle “Casino Dealer’s” shuffling procedure in less than 35 seconds. Although RRSR is not completely random, it is an acceptable compromise between perfect randomization and speed, and therefore standard procedure in most casinos. True randomization of a clean deck requires 7 riffles, and at least one split is recommended. Shuffle Tech’s 7-riffle cycle meets this mathematical requirement in less than 70 seconds.

One can argue that the Shuffle Tech method is actually much more secure than most of the more elaborate shufflers used in casinos. Those devices are very complex mechanisms driven by sophisticated software that often scans the individual cards and uses Random Number Generators (RNGs) to determine how the cards will be distributed throughout the shuffling cycle. These RNGs are actually mathematical algorithms and many experts have argued that they do not truly replicate the effect of a complete shuffle. Moreover, anybody familiar with the story of Ron Harris, a computer programmer working for the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the early 1990s, knows that gaming machines controlled by RNGs can be manipulated to the cheater’s advantage. While that’s improbable in a regulated casino, it could easily happen outside a licensed gaming environment. Such manipulation would be impossible with a Shuffle Tech machine because it does not scan or record the cards or rely on RNGs.

In my opinion, the introduction of affordable fully automatic shufflers is a great contribution to the security and quality of private poker games, and Shuffle Tech machines should be installed as standard equipment for all serious poker games. Hosts owe their players nothing less.

I.G. Modiano is President of Catwalk Casino Consulting, an independent consulting firm specializing in developing procedures for hardening casino game security. For more information about Catwalk consulting services, click to: www.catwalkcasinoconsulting.com

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