Abstract

The present invention is directed to a shoe of the type described wherein the shoe has a card scanner which scans indicia on a playing card as the card moves along and out of a chute by manual direction by the dealer in the normal fashion. The scanner can be one of several different types of devices which will sense each card as it is moved downwardly and out of the shoe. A feed forward neural-network which is trained using error back-propagation to recognize all possible card suits and card values sensed by the scanner. Such a neural-network becomes a part of a scanning system which provides a proper reading of the cards to determine the progress of the play of the game including how the game might suffer if the game players are allowed to count cards using a card count system and perform other acts which would limit the profit margin of the casino. The shoe of the present invention is also provided with additional devices which make it simple and easy to record data relevant to the play of the game. For instance, the shoe has means for accommodating a "customer-tracking-card" or preferred customer card which reads the personal information of a card holder from a magnetic stripe on the card and this information travels with the preferred customer from game to game, throughout a casino, which the customer likes to play. An LCD display can also be part of the shoe and this display can be used to enter and retrieve vital player information as deemed necessary or desirable to the customer file opened when the magnetic stripe reader reads the preferred customer card with the customer name and account number embedded within the cards magnetic stripe.