these machines. Overall, more hands are dealt per hour. So far, I have only seen two instances where they take more time. One is when they mis-fire, a reset requires under-the-table access, which means the Floor (supervision) must come over and take care of it. The second instance is when a dealt hand is a mis-deal, or a played hand does not got to a flop. In both instances the dealer is waiting for the shuffler to finish. But these delays are minor!

However, one of these types of delays had a horrible consequence.... Although the shuffler was not to blame, it was the presence of the shuffler that caused a problem, as follows....

At the end of a hand, the dealer squared up the deck and was waiting for the suffler to finish. At that moment a player asked for chips (another buy-in). The dealer took the cash in exchange for chips. Then another player asked a question of the dealer. When the distractions stopped, the dealer thought that she had a fresh deck in front of her, so she cut the deck and dealt them out.

The hand ended up being a jackpot hand and the eye-in-the-sky saw the mistake. After two plus hours the players were told that the hand was invalid and that the jackpot would not be paid. At first the dealer was suspended, but soon afterwards she was fired.

Jim