USPCC’s playing cards and accessories combine the values of traditional craftsmanship with the latest technology, ensuring the integrity of the game
When a company has been in business for more than a century, there’s a fine line between keeping products true to the values and traditions of the founders and ensuring there’s enough innovation in the company to build new products and new markets in the face of outside competition.
The United States Playing Card Company has managed to achieve that by marrying the very latest technology with the highest available standards of materials. The result is the 21st century version of an artefact used by game lovers for generations—namely, the playing card.
“Our card brands such as Bee®, Bicycle® and Congress®, remain the most recognised in their category, and Bicycle® brand playing cards have been around since 1885,” says Scott Madding, USPCC’s International Casino Sales Director.
“We’re proud of this history, but we are also focused on today, and on innovation,” he adds.
Playing card 2.0
A modern playing card as produced by USPCC is far from being humble. It’s a high-tech, sophisticated product that comes in many formats for many settings, including hardwearing plastic and paper composites for casino poker rooms, as well as more traditional linenfinish paper cards for card squeezing baccarat players in casino markets such as Macau and Las Vegas.
“We’re the only manufacturer that makes our own cardstock. We scan for any imperfections. All the other playing card companies buy paper pre-embossed,” states Dwight Watson, USPCC’s Casino Sales Manager – Asia.
Embossing the paper after printing means the surface of the card retains the slightly dimpled effect essential to allow a tiny cushion of air between each card. That, in turn, allows for more efficient card shuffling via machine, eliminating the risk of two cards being dealt simultaneously from the shoe.
“We emboss after the printing process, so that gives the unique linen finish you can feel on the cards. When suppliers buy paper preembossed, then print on it, the ink fills in the embossing,” explains Mr Watson.
“The reason our cards work so well in shuffling machines is that the embossing gives a little bit of separation between each card in the pack—it effectively creates an air cushion. A very smooth card on the other hand, tends to cause problems for shuffler machines. Sometimes more than one card can come out,” adds Scott Madding.
Traditional or jumbo indices
USPCC supplies the full range of its respected card brands to the Asian market, including KEM® brand plastic cards in Macau. The cards for the Macau market use a standard index on the playing side, while those supplied to casinos in Europe and the US commonly use a jumbo-size index.
“When they do the flop at a large table, people at the other end of the table can see the cards,” states Mr Madding.
“We changed to large pips for ease of surveillance,” he adds.
“It’s easier for the ‘eye in the sky’ [casino overhead cameras] to see. We found the players liked it, and the pit bosses liked it. I would say we used to supply the majority of our cards in standard index format, but now jumbo index is the majority. If you walk up and down the Strip in Las Vegas and walk into a property and look at any table, you’ll find they’re all using the larger index on most of their games except baccarat.”
USPCC baccarat shoe
USPCC’s baccarat shoe, designed to work specifically with USPCC cards, was introduced to the Macau market more than a year ago at the Galaxy City Clubs and most recently at Galaxy StarWorld Hotel & Casino as well as the New Century Casino. It has been well received, says Mr Madding.
“We had the quality of the card they needed, and the performance of the shoe was there. They are a long-standing customer of ours. We also have our card shoes in the Korean market and the Southeast Asia region. We have more than 750 units placed throughout the world, including North America.
“The baccarat shoe has been in the market now for about a year. It’s got proven reliability, and it’s starting to gain wider acceptance in Macau as well as other markets. As contracts come up, everybody’s looking to maximise their operational efficiency and save money where they can, so we find new sales opportunities present themselves,” adds Dwight Watson.
Operator friendly
One of the attractive aspects of USPCC’s baccarat shoe is the ease with which the firmware can be updated, says the company.
“The nice thing about our shoe is it’s all software driven,” says Mr Watson.
“Competing products are driven by software too, but with our shoe it’s very easy to go in and make the enhancements. The casino operator can also select different performance parameters depending on the nature of the casino market. All these changes can be done right at the table. The unit doesn’t have to go into a back room and be opened up.”
RelatedPosts
The favourite dice game in Macau is sic bo. There are signs, however, that other dice games are gaining a foothold in the market, including North American casino favourite craps. USPCC has started supplying its high-quality dice to several venues in Macau.
Bee® Dice
“Our dice are on the floors of several casinos in Macau. We don’t do the sic bo dice because we don’t do the rounded corners. But we’ve got the Bee brand dice on several casino floors in Macau.
“The tolerances on the measurements of our dice can be held tighter than the industry usually requires. That all comes down to weights and balance, so you’re getting a truer roll from your dice.That helps maintain game integrity for the operators. Some of the other manufacturers can’t hold the tolerances that we can hold,” explains Mr Watson.
USPCC has resisted any move to relocate its manufacturing base away from North America and Europe. (Its Fournier brand is made in Spain along with some of the export versions of its other brands.) This is because of USPCC’s determination to maintain the highest possible standards of product quality and product security.
“Dice production still has a significant labour component to it, because they need to be moulded using batch manufacturing, and there’s also the foil stamping,” says Dwight Watson.
“As far as playing cards and the rest of our product range is concerned, we face the same challenges as everyone else on the labour cost component,” adds Scott Madding.
“What we’ve been doing over the years more from a security standpoint than anything else, is to get equipment and technology in place that will take as much of the human element out of the equation as possible.”
In July 2009, USPCC moved from its Cincinnati, Ohio base, where it had been for more than a century, to a brand new purpose built 570,000 square feet manufacturing plant across the river in neighbouring Kentucky—only a short distance from Cincinnati Airport. The company also invested US$30 million in new equipment for the plant.
“We find that the more automation we have the better, and the fewer mistakes,” says Mr Watson.
“Every time a human hand touches the product—and that includes in the casinos where the card packs go into the pre shuffle room—the opportunity for something untoward to happen, such as a card going missing or collusion with someone wishing to cheat the system, is there,” adds Mr Madding.
