A Closer Look at a Casino-Grade Dealing Shoe

At this point in my life I can confidently say that I have more shoes than most women. I actually even have my own personal shoe closet. But my shoes aren't the kind you wear on your feet. I am talking about casino dealing shoes, mainly used for games such as blackjack and baccarat.

It would be hard to me to argue that I am not a collector of casino dealing shoes. But the truth is, I really am not a collector. I ended up with all these shoes simply because I've been researching various shoe designs, measurements and security features. And I keep all these shoes around just so I can always have them on hand, in case I need to look at something.

If I were a woman with an overflowing shoe closet I could show off some of my shoes simply by wearing them. But I can't do that with casino shoes. So, that's a good reason to get a new blog thread started and show some of the more interesting dealing shoes I've managed to acquire over time.

I don't really know how many dealing shoes I own, but let me put it this way: I hope I don't have to move any time soon. This said, let me at least take pictures of some of them and publish some blog posts, in case I ever need to reduce my collection in a rush.

Here is a photo of a blackjack dealing shoe with a sliding gate. This shoe came from a casino that is now out of biz.


The first thing that you should notice is that the front of this shoe is completely closed off. That's the sliding gate, which is a security feature that protects the games against the use of marked cards and against possible (and unlikely) attempts at second dealing.

The fourth main objective of any casino is to protect their games (the first, second and third objectives are, of course, to make money). This said, I am always surprised when to see that most casinos still use dealing shoes that are lacking many of the security features that have already been invented decades ago. The main security feature that is lacking in most industry-standard casino shoes is a way to protect the top card of the shoe (the most important card of the shoe) against the use of marked cards (the most commonly used casino scam). In other words, most industry-standard casino shoes (and even the more expensive automatic card shufflers) are designed so that the back of the top card is always partially exposed. This shoe has a sliding gate that prevents top card exposure.

To deal the top card, the dealer must first lift the sliding gate, then strike the top card and dealt it to one of the suckers. The action of lifting the sliding gate really doesn't require any extra time or effort, since it is done as the hand reaches for the card. The following two photos show the dealing action.



At first glance one might think that the lifting of the sliding gate exposes a large portion of the top card. It most certainly does so, however, that's the card that's about to be dealt, anyway. The important thing is that none of the second card gets exposed as the top card is being dealt, as seen on the second photo.

In most cases the card is dealt face up, so the fact that it's back was exposed one split second before it was dealt, is irrelevant. In other words, what good would it do to identify the card through some kind of a marking system if the card will be dealt face up for anyone to see, anyway? The only exception is the hole card in American blackjack games. However, even in that case it is irrelevant that the card's back is exposed before the deal, since the card slides across the table, in plain view of the players, as it's being dealt, and before it's tucked under the dealer's up card.

One might argue that the a marked card is more difficult to read in motion, and that the brief exposure of the card's back, prior to the deal, might enable an expert cheat to quickly read its back and identify the value of the card. After all, professional casino cheats don't mark all the cards for all their values, instead they just mark all the ten-value cards (in blackjack) which is all they need to beat the game. So, all that a casino cheat needs to do is to know if the dealer's hole card is a ten or not.

Although that's all true, and although I would be wrong in saying that it would be impossible to quickly identify the top card during the split second while the sliding gate is open, some other facts also remain true. First, the hole card is still slid in plain view across the table (as just discussed), and second, when conventional dealing shoes are used the top card is partially exposed for a much longer period of time than is the case with this shoe. So, basically, it is still much easier to read any top card with conventional dealing shoes than it is with this one.

One reason why acquired this shoe was to study the mechanics of the sliding gate and figure out if it would be possible to design a two shoe with a sliding gate. I've come to the conclusion that it would be impossible.

First of all, the sliding gate makes it impossible to identify the top card in advance. In the case of a two shoe the identification of the top card is either done by peeking (in the case of a prism shoe) or by marked cards (in the case of a rough-and-smooth shoe). Neither one of those options are possible if the shoe is fitted with a sliding gate. The other problem is that second dealing is not really possible, due to the fact that the top card is almost fully exposed as the dealer lifts the sliding gate. So, if you see that the casino is using this kind of shoe, you can rest assured that the dealer is not dealing seconds on you.

This is not to say that this kind of dealing shoe can't be gaffed. I can actually think of several ways to gaff this shoe, but in all honesty this shoe design would not be my first choice to make a gaffed shoe. The only exception would be to make a camera-ready gaffed shoe with a sliding gate, which is a shoe that enables the operator to see through the front and read the top card that's been marked with camera-ready ink. So, if you're a casino operator and if you ever come across these kinds of shoes, make sure the front is truly opaque, before you put these shoes on the floor.