This is a monthly look at new patents for tabletop games. I’ve been doing this for several years on my blog, but I’ve decided to move them over to this one. Enjoy.

Battle play card game – Some kind of card game with warriors, beasts, snares, and curses. Cards have power and defense totals, like ccgs, and each turn you play a card on yourself or your opponent.

20 card deck poker game and method therefor – The game Royal Hold’em from New Poker Championships (aka Tony Pateledas). The twenty card deck includes the cards 10 to A in 4 suits.

Electronic board game system with automated opponent – A board game (of any sort) with an electronic arm that picks up and moves pieces as if playing against a live opponent.

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Christian board game – A design patent:

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Game utilizing a non-spherical billiard ball – Billiards with an egg-shaped ball. And I though this was just a line from The Mikado.

Modifiable game – Near as I can tell, a board with replaceable magnetic boards, each of which contains some roll-and-move game.

Modified poker game – A version of Lame-Brain Pete where each player plays against the house.

Method of playing game – I’ve always said that roll-and-move games are like gambling; this one just makes it explicit. After each roll you get to bet.

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Pouch for a word game – A design patent:

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Method for playing a card game having a bonus bet – The abstract sure promises a lot: “A method for conducting a gaming business which is based upon a new and novel gaming methodology which requires an initial bonus round of play and a later blackjack round of play. The business methodology dramatically reduces required initial capital expenditures and dramatically increases profits.”

The background of the patent continues the excitement: “The business strategy of these [casino] businesses has traditionally been limited to creating or building one or more facilities in which gaming occurs, thereby requiring a relatively large “upfront” capital expenditure investment and an ongoing operational expense which erodes the overall profit margin. While this business approach does allow a gaming business to be profitably run, it fails to recognize other revenue generation potential, especially the revenue potential associated with a new and novel game being exploited in a new and novel fashion.”

What could this invention be???

It is an additional bonus bet added to the game of Blackjack. You bet on whether the dealer also has blackjack. That’s it.

Oh, and one more thing: “A method for conducting a gaming business is provided. Particularly, the method includes the steps of creating a game involving a bonus round of play and a blackjack round of play; and selectively licensing the created game to at least one gaming establishment, thereby creating a royalty stream of revenue based upon the amount of play of the created game.”

“You ought to remember” board game – A trivia game based on the Chinese zodiac.

Automatic card shuffler – I am now officially bored by patents for automatic card shufflers.

System and method for pari-mutuel gaming based on sporting event results – As near as I can tell, payout for bets on horses is based on how everyone else bet minus a cut for the house. This patent attempts to take the results of horse races and apply them – live, as they occur – to the results of dice or card games. In other words, instead of betting on a horse, you bet on a die “roll” or card “draw”, which is deterministically set according to the results of a horse race.

Method of playing a game of war – A betting game played against the dealer. You each get dealt cards, and you win if yours is higher than the dealer’s. Multiple cards may be dealt at a time, in which case a certain number of your cards have to beat the dealer’s.

6-5-4 casino table poker game – The dealer is dealt an additional card. If the first card turned over is higher than a certain rank, the dealer discards it.

I like the honesty in the background information for this one. Rather than claiming to be the best invention since splitting pairs in Blackjack, this one simply claims: “In spite of the availability of many casino table card games in the literature, only a few games have been widely successful in the casino gaming market. It is therefore desirable to provide a greater variety of games from which more successful table games can be found.”

Stairway to heaven – A roll and move Christian board game with angel pieces and jeweled crowns.