I am happy with this machine. This shuffles really quickly and is fun to watch deal. I bought it as a gift for my parents, I would not splurge to spend this much money on it for myself.
Works well so far. Wish it held more than 2 decks of cards. I like that it shuffles and deals the cards to multiple players.
We’ve named this little guy. He’s come through to shuffle like a beast. Although he does throw out a couple more cards to some players but we think it may be heavy use of the cards which can cause it to grasp. We just buy new slick cards. Problem solved😆
Works great and we’ve used it for several different games. Our friends love it, too!
Got this for family game nights, especially for games like Hearts, Spades, or Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, and other games that involve the tedium of shuffling and dealing a full deck. For us, it’s not as worth dragging out for games that only require smaller hands, but I can see it being useful for people with dexterity issues or physical limitations, or for anyone who just doesn’t want to shuffle and/or deal cards, even when the game requires less interaction with the deck.
Dealing has been accurate about 95% of the time in real use. On rare occasions it’s skipped a position or dealt two cards instead of one, but overall it’s been very reliable and not a cause of frustration.
Shuffling is a little more hit-or-miss if you’re expecting a “perfect” shuffle every time. I think a lot of that comes down to user error, since you have to split the deck fairly evenly. It also occasionally jams and pulls multiple cards at once, which is a mild annoyance but not a deal breaker. I do like that it can handle decks larger than a standard 52-card deck.
The 8 wireless remotes are undeniably cool, though we don’t really have much use for them in the games we play. We tested them to see how they work, but I can’t vouch for how reliable they are in actual gameplay. Setup is mostly easy and pretty straightforward, even though the manual makes it seem more complicated than it is. There are presets for different games, but it basically comes down to setting the number of players and the number of cards per hand.
The unit feels sturdy but it’s also lightweight. That doesn’t sound important, but after it’s done dealing we usually move it off to the side so it’s not in the way, and it’s easy to do that. I do wish it had a built-in basket or tray on top for a discard pile, because then we probably wouldn’t bother moving it. Battery life seems solid. The manual claims 6 hours, but I’m not sure how that translates to the number of shuffles and deals. It probably depends on how you’re using it, but we’ve only recharged it once after multiple sessions. It’s also pretty quiet while it runs.
It does seem to work better with new (or newer) cards. We tried it with an older deck and the dealing was fine, but the shuffling got sloppier, like it was grabbing multiple cards more often and also getting stuck.
The current price seems in line with other similar models, but it’s still a bit of an investment (although I try not to base my opinion too heavily on price since prices here change constantly and there are often deals, coupons, and promotions). That said, I think it may be worth it just to save time, reduce arguments over shuffling, and eliminate the tedium of dealing, especially for games where you’re distributing a lot of cards.