I play home poker games quite often, and was thrilled and then
disappointed when I ran across a product called an automatic card
shuffler.  At first glance, I thought how much that would solve two
problems.  First, it would speed up the game.  Second, mathematically
a desk of cards should be shuffled seven times to be considered random
-- but no one is willing to shuffle that long.  Upon looking at the
product, however, I noticed that it operated by someone cutting the
deck in half, putting each half in separately, somehow starting the
device, and it would shuffle the two halves.  Problem is now you have
to take the cards out, cut the deck again, and repeat this process six
more times.  Obviously, this would slow the game down tremendously. 
I'm looking for a worthwhile automatic card shuffler that "cycles"
through the deck several times -- rather than just going through once.
 I'd like to know where I could buy such a shuffler online.

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Request for Question Clarification by efn-ga on 04 Jan 2005 07:31 PST

I was not able to find a shuffler that does repeated riffle shuffles,
but there are products that use shuffling methods other than riffle
shuffles and claim a high degree of randomness.  Would you be
interested in information about products like those as an answer to
your question?

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Clarification of Question by darlingm-ga on 16 Jan 2005 11:59 PST

efn-ga -- I am very sorry for the delayed response, I just noticed
there was a response on this question.

It doesn't matter to me if the shuffler does riffle shuffles.  All I'm
really concerned about is that it shuffles it randomly -- to avoid a
the each person has to shuffle seven times problem.

The only concern I have is if the machine takes a while to shuffle
each time, using its other method, delaying the game.  As long as they
aren't slow, I'd be fine with other methods.

I couldn't find information that added up to an answer to the
question, but I'll share what I found in case it's useful or
interesting.

The products to which I referred in my Request for Clarification were
intended for use in casinos.  For example:

PokerOne? Shuffler from VendingData Corporation
http://www.vendingdata.com/products/shufflers/shuffler_poker

Ace from ShuffleMaster, Inc.
http://www.shufflemaster.com/02_products/utility_products/shufflers/shufflers_sd/ace.asp

These are likely to be random enough and fast enough for you, but
there are a couple of problems.  First, the cost:  you can see from
the PokerOne page that it sells for about $5,000.  This seems a bit
steep for a home poker game.  The other problem is buying these
machines on-line.  ShuffleMaster says on their contact page that they
don't sell to consumers.

http://www.shufflemaster.com/04_contact/contact_info/

VendingData doesn't make a similar explicit statement, but most if not
all of the customers they list on their Clients page are casinos, so
they may have similar restrictions.

http://www.vendingdata.com/clients/index_html?product=SHUFFLER

--efn