Card handling apparatus with faulty deck rejection

A card handling apparatus for randomizing and/or verifying integrity of at least a first individual deck of playing cards, the card handling apparatus comprising:

• A housing adaptable to be mounted onto a surface of a casino table or into an opening within the surface of a casino playing table;
• a card intake portal accessible by a dealer for receiving unshuffled cards;
• a first card deck discharge portal accessible by a dealer for receiving randomized and properly verified card decks from within the card handling apparatus;
• a second card deck discharge portal for ejecting faulty card decks from the card handling apparatus;
• a control panel for indicating a status of at least the first individual deck of playing cards;
• an optical recognition sensor configured to individually read a rank and a suit of each card within the playing cards of the card intake portal;
• one slot-less elevator aligned with an axis of a randomizing chamber having at least two elevator arms movable along the axis of and within the randomizing chamber;
• a retractable support structure located within the first discharge portal, having a first position in which the retractable support structure resides within a first discharge portal housing and a second position in which the retractable support structure is capable of moving through an opening in a wall of the portal housing to achieve the first position;
• a gripper mechanism located in the randomizing chamber and movable in an arcuate motion relative to the randomizing chamber axis;
• at least one microcontroller for directing the transport of the playing cards, deciding if an interrogated deck is faulty or “non faulty”, and providing status to a card handler operator;
• and the elevator arms configured to relocate and transfer the interrogated card deck to either the first or second discharge portal, dependent upon a fault criteria determination of the microcontroller.