Pre-shuffled stacks shuffles their way in Ohio casinos

“It can take 30 minutes to get the first table going and up to 90 minutes to get all six tables going,” said Tosha Tousant, Horseshoe Cleveland’s director of table games.

Time is money at casinos, and saving minutes means more games played and more revenue for the casinos.  “And also better customer service,” said Himbert Sinopoli, vice president and general manager of Hollywood Casino Columbus.

Pre-shuffled cards are an industry standard, he said, adding that Hollywood Casino uses about 20,000 decks a month for all of its card games. The total is 16,000 decks a month at Horseshoe Cleveland, Tousant said.

Despite their use worldwide, the executive director of the state’s casino commission was skeptical when Ohio casino executives requested permission to use pre-shuffled decks. “Then our staff made two inspection trips (to the United States Playing Card Co. in Erlanger, Ky.),” said Matthew Schuler.

“And we realized the process they employed would actually improve the integrity of the game, and that’s what convinced us,” he said. “The issue of time is an issue for the casinos, not for us. What we’re concerned about is the integrity of the game.”

For Schuler, this means the decks are complete and shuffled so thoroughly and randomly that there’s no way for dealers or players to know what card will come up next. United States Playing Card has a fully automated production line.

“We load sheets of printed decks at the front of the production line. They are cut and then shuffled automatically by our approved equipment, and then we load finished and secured, pre-shuffled cartons of cards into a shipping carton,” said company spokesman Scott Madding. “Limiting the number of times human hands touch loose playing cards increases the security.”

The company makes hundreds of millions of decks a year under the brands Bicycle, Bee, Aristocrat and Hoyle. United States Playing Card has received orders from Ohio casinos, and shipments are expected to go out early in the fourth quarter of the year, Madding said.

The company is the only card manufacturer the Ohio casino commission has approved to supply pre-shuffled cards. One other manufacturer has contacted the commission about the approval process, Schuler said.

Pre-shuffled cards cost about 25 cents more per deck, Sinopoli said. These cards can be used for only one day, sometimes less, before they are sent to a special room to be logged and then destroyed, along with discarded dice.

“Sometimes they don’t even last a day,” Sinopoli said of the cards. “If someone spills something on them or has a cut finger and gets blood on a card, even if it’s not intentional, they’re marked, and we get rid of the entire deck.”

Every deck of cards is logged in when it arrives at a casino, a process monitored by the commission. “We document the complete linear sequence from their arrival to destruction,” Sinopoli said. Holes are drilled through the center of discarded cards, and they are marked with black ink, Tousant said.

Some are given away to charitable organizations, some are sold at the casino gift shop, and thousands are shredded, she said. Dice also go through a rigorous inspection before they are put into use.

According to the casino commission’s rules, dice must “be formed in the shape of a cube with a size no smaller than 0.75 inch on each side and not any larger than 0.775 inch on each side.” “We make sure they’re balanced and check that a magnet doesn’t impact them,” Sinopoli said.