What Methods Are Used to Shuffle Cards in Online Casinos?

A dealer managing the cards properly at a casino table is a crucial part of the game experience, and from the player’s perspective, everything that the dealer does must happen with clarity and transparency. That includes the shuffling of the deck, which, unlike playing at home with friends, is a well-orchestrated, controlled process.

The card shuffling process during a live game is done in a way that doesn’t interrupt the flow of the game. The online casino experience, after all, is all about convenience, from accessing games 24/7 to being able to use a convenient payment method: for example, if your preferred payment option is the Astropay Wallet which let you pay without sharing your card details with the casino, it’s easy to find Astropay casino sites. User interfaces for gambling platforms reduce as much friction as possible for players to have a seamless, enjoyable experience.

But some things can’t be skipped over just for the sake of convenience and speed, like rigorous card shuffles. It’s fascinating to see these happen because they are fairly slow processes, which is in stark contrast to the card games themselves, as rounds of blackjack, for example, fly by. But what methods are used for the shuffling of decks?

Type of Shuffles

There are many different types of card shuffles, but the one most commonly used at online casinos is the ‘riffle’. This is a classic style of casino shuffle, where the dealer splits the deck in two and riffles through the packets of cards with their thumbs. This causes an interlacing effect, giving a very good mix when done several times.

The ‘wash’ shuffle can typically be seen when a new deck of cards is introduced into a game. This is where the dealer just spreads the cards out on the table (face down, of course), and mixes them around, giving them a good random wash. Although not as visually appealing as the riffle shuffle, the wash is great for breaking up the order of a new deck.

Boxing (or stripping) is one of the more common shuffles that is seen used during online casino games. This is where packets of cards are slipped from the top of the deck and reintegrated into the stack, a bit like the standard overhand shuffle.

The overhand shuffle, which involves transferring packets of cards from the top to the bottom, is a rudimentary way to mix the deck, but not a style that you’ll see in a live online casino. That’s because it’s a method where it’s fairly easy to manipulate and control cards in order to stack the deck, and again, casinos need to be transparent and portray an image of trust and fairness.

Mixing It Up

While the riffle shuffle is an extremely popular method of mixing cards at live dealer games, very often, there will actually be a few methods blended into a sequence. There may first be multiple riffle shuffles, before a few turns of boxing, and then the sequence is finished off with a cut.

The cut is usually the final move, and it’s a definitive point which does two things. It’s a security measure to prevent anyone from accidentally seeing the bottom card, and the cut instils a clear picture of randomness.

Cut Card

In a live stream of blackjack, for example, at some point a colour card will show up in the shoe, like yellow or red. This is where the cut point will happen, and the colour card will go with the current discarded cards into the back of the shoe and taken off the table, while a new, already fully shuffled shoe is introduced.

The dealer doesn’t stop the game and make everyone wait while they shuffle the used shoe. Remember that casino play is all about convenience and flow. The game pace determines the profitability at a table, so a casino wants as many rounds played per hour as possible, so there’s no stopping.

Instead, a second dealer will come in and shuffle the used cards in the background. This shuffle will happen in full view for transparency and fairness, and it’s where you can see the expert shuffling in action. From the used shoe, there will be both the used cards and unused cards (separated by the cut card), and these will be kept in separate piles initially, so that packets from each can be mixed, usually with a rifle.

The shuffling can take up to a few minutes to ensure that the job is done properly. There’s no rush to get it done, just that it is done properly, and how many decks are in play in the game can influence the time it takes to complete the shuffle.

The Magic Seven Riffles

Some cool mathematics comes into this. According to the numbers, a deck of cards needs seven riffle shuffles to be totally randomised from its starting order. So this is why you won’t see a live casino dealer doing just one or two riffles, because it’s not enough to fully randomise things. While the goal of the shuffle is randomness, how shuffles are done in a live studio is not random. It’s a controlled method designed to guarantee fairness.