Patent ID: 8657287

Claim:
A system for monitoring the playing cards in play during a card game, the system comprising: a plurality of playing cards, each playing card including a region of interest on which micro-dots are printed in visible ink in a pattern, said pattern encoding the rank and suit of the card, where said micro-dots are sized to not be visible to the unaided human eye, wherein the rank and suit of each playing card is each encoded via an x-y coordinate grid, in which at least one location on the grid represents the rank and suit of each playing card; a shoe, the shoe including: a card cradle for holding the playing cards, a card removal portion for allowing the playing cards to be manually removed from the shoe, and an image sensor for imaging the face of a playing card as the playing card is drawn out of the card removal portion and past a field of view of the image sensor; a game controller unit in data communication with the shoe, said game control unit receiving an image from the imaging sensor, determining the location of the micro-dots, and determining the rank and suit of the playing card therefrom.