Patent ID: 7431297

Claim:
A card game apparatus, comprising: a game execution means; a casing; a card arrangement panel disposed at an upper part of said casing, said panel being configured to be transparent to a light invisible to a naked eye and having a flat surface broad enough to arrange a plurality of cards without piling up the cards, said flat surface being configured so that each of the cards placed on the panel is slidably movable without detaching from the panel, wherein each of said plurality of cards is printed on one of its major faces with a picture of a game character and provided on the other of said major surfaces with an optically detectable code pattern including unique data indicative of said game character, wherein each of said card is placed on said flat surface of the panel so that said other major surface of the card formed with said code pattern faces said flat surface of the panel; light source means disposed inside of said casing and radiating said light invisible to the naked eye so as to illuminate each of said other major surfaces of the cards placed on said panel from inside of the casing; and card data reading means including an image sensor disposed inside of said casing, which is configured to take an overall image including all of the images of said plurality of cards placed on said flat surface of the panel under the light of said light source, wherein said card data reading means is configured to perform: (a) when an operator arranges the cards on the panel so that the other of said major surfaces faces said flat surface of the panels, taking the overall image by the image sensor, said overall image taken by the image sensor including all of the images of said other major surfaces of the cards arranged on the panel by the player; (b) calculating locations of each of the cards on said panel from the data of said overall image; (c) extracting the unique data of each of the cards from the code patterns in the overall image taken by the image sensor; and (d) supplying said game execution means with the detected information of the locations as well as the unique data of the cards placed on the panel as input data indicative of manipulation by the operator manipulating said card game apparatus, wherein said game execution means performs controlling progress of the game in response to said manipulation with the cards on said panel; and generating images indicative of the game progress to display the images of the game progress on a display monitor.