Patent ID: 7699694

Claim:
A game monitoring system for a Blackjack card game including a dealer hand at least one player hand of cards where a player makes a wager and exercises options with respect to the player's hand according to the rules of the game, the system comprising: a shoe including a housing having an outlet slot, said housing sized to store a plurality of playing cards defining a card inventory and configured for a dealer to dispense said cards one at a time through said outlet slot to complete said hands according to the rules of the game; a scanner to scan said playing cards and generate a set of scanner signals determinative of the identity of cards dispensed from the shoe to each hand; means for acquiring data representing the wager(s) made by the player; a memory storing data representing at least one predetermined Blackjack game play criteria in relation to at least one of the player's wager or the cards dealt to at least one of said hands and data representing the constituency of the card inventory; and a computer processor to receive said scanner signals and said wager data, said processor configured to compare said acquired data to said at least one predetermined game play criteria to determine adherence by the player to said at least one predetermined game play criteria, and further configured to select the number of cards to remain in the inventory and not dealt from the shoe for reconstitution and reshuffling of the inventory, said processor processing the scanner data to determine depletion of cards from the inventory by dealing, and to leave said selected number of cards undealt and in response thereto, sending a signal to command reconstitution and re-shuffling of the inventory.