Card game monitoring system

Abstract

The card game monitoring system comprises a game table on which bettors put wagers on betting areas; and a card shooter apparatus has a card reading unit to read and record the number (rank) and suit of the cards; and a control unit to determine a winning hand according to a table game rules based on information of numbers (ranks) and suits of the cards sequentially read by the card reading unit; a monitor video camera system to capture positions of cards and to identify wagers on each betting area at the game table; the control unit has further processing function to check whether wagers with payoff move to a pool of the winner of the bettors determined by the card shooter apparatus at the end of each game.

1 . A card game monitoring system for playing a table game, the card game monitoring system comprising:
 a game table comprising betting areas configured to receive wagers from bettors;   a card shooter apparatus used for games on the game table;   a camera system configured to capture positions on the game table to which one or more cards have been delivered from the card shooter apparatus to the bettors; and   a control unit configured to determine:
 1) a number of betting chips and positions of the betting chips by performing an image analysis of an image output by the camera system to identify the betting chips in the image and to identify one or more positions within the image at which the betting chips are located, 
 2) for each bettor, whether or not the bettor receives more than two cards from the card shooter apparatus, 
 3) each hand of the bettors and a dealer based on the positions of cards captured by the camera system, and 
 4) for each bettor, received chips based on the hand of the bettor and the dealer according to a table game rule to record a history of acquisition of the chips. 
   
     
     
         2 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 1 , wherein
 the card shooter apparatus is configured to read ranks of each card dealt from the card shooter apparatus,   the control unit is further configured to check and report whether the ranks of cards in the hands determined by the control unit are corresponding to the ranks read by the card shooter apparatus.   
     
     
         3 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 1 , wherein the card shooter apparatus is further configured to determine when each game starts and ends. 
     
     
         4 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 3 , wherein the control unit is further configured to check whether the wagers move from a first betting position in a particular betting area to another betting area of the game table during each game. 
     
     
         5 . A card game monitoring system for a game, the card game monitoring system comprising:
 a game table comprising betting areas, the betting areas including, for each bettor, a banker hand betting area and a player hand betting area;   a card shooter apparatus used for games on the game table and configured to read ranks of cards dealt from the card shooter apparatus,   a monitor camera system configured to capture wagers placed on the game table by each bettor; and   a control unit configured to:
 perform an image analysis of an image output by the monitor camera system to identify one or more positions and one or more amounts within the image at which the wagers are located; 
 determine whether a banker hand or a player hand is a winning hand according to a game rule based on information of the ranks of the cards read by the card shooter apparatus, and 
 determine, for each bettor, received chips based on the winning hand and a result of the image analysis to record a history of acquisition of the chips. 
   
     
     
         6 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 5 , wherein the control unit is further configured to perform an image analysis of an image output by the monitor camera system to identify the ranks of the cards on the game table delivered by the dealer and configured to check and report whether the ranks of cards identified by the control unit are corresponding to the ranks determined by the card shooter apparatus. 
     
     
         7 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 5 , wherein the card shooter apparatus is further configured to determine when each game starts and ends. 
     
     
         8 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 7 , wherein the control unit is further configured to check, during each game, whether a particular wager of the wagers moves from a first position in a particular betting area to a second position in another area of the game table. 
     
     
         9 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 1 , wherein the control unit is configured perform an image analysis of an image output by the camera system to check whether the wagers with payoffs move to the one or more winners of the bettors determined by the card shooter apparatus at an end of each game based on the identified directions of movements of the wagers. 
     
     
         10 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 1 , wherein the card shooter apparatus is configured to be coupled to the game table. 
     
     
         11 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 10 , wherein card shooter apparatus configured to be coupled to game table is positioned on the game table. 
     
     
         12 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 5 , wherein the card shooter apparatus is configured to deliver the cards to the game table. 
     
     
         13 . A card game monitoring system for playing a table game, the card game monitoring system comprising:
 a control unit;   an electronic dealing shoe configured to determine, for each card of a plurality of cards dealt from the electronic dealing shoe, a rank and a suit of the card and to generate first information indicating the ranks and the suits of the plurality of cards dealt from the electronic dealing shoe; and   a camera system configured to captured a plurality of cards having been dealt from the electronic dealing shoe to generate image information,   wherein the control unit is configured to:
 receive image information from the camera system indicating the positions on the game table to which the camera system has captured the plurality of cards to have been dealt; 
 generate a second information indicating the positions of the plurality of cards and the wagers on each betting area at the game table based on the image information, the generation of the second information including performing an image analysis of an image of the image information output by the camera system to identify one or more positions within the image at which the wagers are located to thereby determine respective ones of the betting areas at the game table on which the wagers have been placed; 
 determine each hand of the dealer and the one or more bettors based on a combination of the first information indicating the rank and the suit of the plurality of cards and the second information indicating the positions of the plurality of cards; 
 determine, based on the determined hands of a dealer and one or more bettors, whether each hand of the one or more bettors is a winning hand or a losing hand according to game rules; and 
 determine, for each bettor, received amount based on the winning hand of the bettor according to a table game rule to record a history of acquisition amount of the bettor. 
   
     
     
         14 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 13 , wherein the control unit is further configured to identify the wagers with payoffs and the wagers without payoffs based on the identified wining hands and based on the wagers on each betting area at the game table identified by the control unit. 
     
     
         15 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 13 , wherein the control unit is further configured to:
 identify the ranks of the plurality of cards on the game table; and   verify whether the ranks of cards identified by the control unit are corresponding to the ranks determined by the card reading unit.   
     
     
         16 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 13 , wherein the camera system includes one or more cameras configured to capture images of the game table, generate the image information based on the images, and send the image information to the control unit. 
     
     
         17 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 13 , further comprising means for outputting an error signal responsive to a determination that either a particular wager with a payoff did not move to a particular winner or that a particular wager without payoffs move to the dealer. 
     
     
         18 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 13 , wherein the electronic dealing shoe is configured to deliver the cards to the game table. 
     
     
         19 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 13 , wherein the electronic dealing shoe is configured to be coupled to the game table. 
     
     
         20 . The card game monitoring system according to  claim 19 , wherein electronic dealing shoe configured to be coupled to the game table is positioned directly on the game table.