Dealing cards into predetermined hands

摘要

In a card-dealing apparatus particularly for dealing a predetermined set of bridge hands, cards are taken sequentially from a card hopper (10), moved across a reading head, and then distributed to one of four chutes, each facing one of the players, thus providing each player with the required hand. The reading head senses the image of each card and the electronics decides to which chute it should be directed. The selection of each hand may be chosen by use of the keypad (22) and associated with information displayed on screens (21a and 21b). The apparatus may operate in conjunction with an electronically readable medium (SSD, CD-Rom) 35, inserted (at position 34) into the apparatus and which contains a very large number of pre-recorded hands.