POKER CUBE GAME APPARATUS AND METHOD OF PLAY

Abstract

A poker cube game apparatus includes five game cubes with the faces of each cube containing specific images representing the motifs of playing cards. The game cubes are positioned for free movement on a turntable. The turntable is rotated for “shuffling” the cubes within a transparent dome. The upstanding faces of the cubes are read when the turntable comes to a rest mode. Winning hands are determined by comparison with bets placed on betting stations prior to rotating the turntable.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/043,532 filed Apr. 9, 2008 and incorporates same herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to game apparatus and especially to a poker cube game apparatus suitable for use as a casino game.

In particular, the game apparatus of this invention involves wagering as to the chance occurrence of virtual poker hands as represented by five game cubes.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Craps is a casino game wherein players wager money against the casino on the outcome of one roll, or a series of rolls of two dice. Players take turns rolling the dice on a craps table and can make any of a large number of bets, however, the betting strategy can be intimidating especially to a new and uninitiated player.

Another popular casino game is poker. Poker is a card game that is played throughout the world typically with a deck of 52 conventional playing cards. A “poker hand” consists of five cards. The “winning” combinations of cards are generally as follows: “royal flush” consisting of ace, king, queen, jack, 10 all in the same suit; “straight flush” consisting of five cards of the same suit in sequence; “four of a kind”, four cards of the same rank; “full house”, three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank; “flush” five cards of the same suit; “straight”, five cards of mixed suits in sequence; “three of a kind”, three cards of the same rank; “two pairs”, two cards of one rank and two cards of another rank; “one pair”, two cards of the same rank, “high card” highest card in hand.

The nature of the poker card game, including the dealing of the cards and the betting on the hand can be rather slow moving and introduces a degree of skill and cunning rather than pure chance. In comparison craps is a fast-moving, exciting, entertaining, and social game that is dependent solely upon random occurrence. This invention incorporates attributes from both of these games to provide an improved casino gambling game.

The game apparatus and method of play is intended to capture the atmosphere and excitement of the casino dice game with the novelty of a wagering system based on analogous poker hands.

The general concept of a dice agitator comprising a rotatable plate is generally disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,761,091. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,462,686, 5,449,174 and 4,114,290 concern spring loaded dice agitators. These devices turn conventional dice and does not utilize game cubes simulating playing cards or a turntable with a bumper for agitation as in this invention. Furthermore, the above-referenced devices do not blend a conventional dice game and a poker card game as in the present invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Briefly, the poker cube game apparatus and method of play of this invention includes five game cubes, with the faces of each cube symbolizing a playing card motif. The game cubes are positioned on a turntable that is surrounded by an bumper member. The turntable is enclosed within a transparent dome. A shaft extending through the dome is accessible by a handle for rotating the shaft and for correspondingly spinning the turntable. The game cubes are freely moveable on the spinning turntable and are urged, by centrifugal force, into contact with the bumper member and are then deflected resulting in agitation and randomization of upstanding cube faces. When the turntable comes to a rest position the upstanding faces of the game cubes are read, as a virtual poker-hand, and compared to the poker hands depicted on betting stations of a wagering board for determining if there is a corresponding winning bet.

Having thus summarized the invention, it will be seen that it is a preferred object thereof to provide an improved game apparatus that combines the features of a dice game with a poker card game and a method of play of the general character described herein which is an improvement over the previously mentioned devices.

To these and to such other preferred objects which may hereinafter appear, the present invention relates to a poker cube game apparatus and method of play as set forth in detail in the following specification and recited in the annexed claims, taken together with the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the accompanying drawings in which is shown an exemplary embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a poker cube game apparatus of this invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken substantially along line 2-2 of FIG. 1 and illustrating a turntable enclosed within a transparent dome and rotatably mounted to a shaft;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken substantially along line 3-3 of FIG. 2 and showing the turntable, a surrounding bumper member, and several game cubes; and

FIG. 4 is a plan view illustrating a wagering surface with defined betting stations having indicia corresponding to winning combinations of the motifs appearing on the game cube faces.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

With specific reference now to the drawings, it is stressed that the particulars shown and described herein are for the purpose of illustrative discussion of the process of this invention and are presented in the cause of providing what is believed to be the most useful and readily understood description of the principles and conceptual aspects of this invention. In this regard, no attempt has been made to show the process in more detail than is necessary for a fundamental understanding of the invention however, the description, in combination with the drawings, should make apparent to those skilled in the art how the process may be applied in practice.

Referring now to FIG. 1 there is shown a poker cube game apparatus 10 in accordance with this invention. The game apparatus 10 includes a base member 12 and an overlying transparent dome 14. A shaft 16 extends through an opening 18 in the dome 14. A mounting plate 22 surrounding the opening 18 secures the shaft 16 for rotation in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction as indicated by the arrows. An upper-most end of the shaft 16 is provided with a handle 24 to facilitate rotation of the shaft 16. A lower-most end of the shaft 16 is mounted within a rotational bearing 20. Further with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, a turntable 26 is secured to the shaft 16 and is rotatably displaceable by the shaft 16.

The base member 12 includes a substantially circular shoulder portion 15 for supporting the transparent dome 14. The turntable 26 is adapted to interact with a plurality of game cubes 28. Each of the game cubes 28 defines six orthogonally oriented faces with each of the faces being configured with the motif representative of the face of a selected playing card from a conventional deck of cards. Alternatively, a cube face can contain other symbols, such as a “$” sign or similar indicia. The game cubes 28, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 3 are positioned on the turntable 26 and freely moveable thereon.

It should be further noted that a bumper member 32 is mounted to the base member 12 in surrounding relationship to the turntable 26. The bumper member 30 is preferably fabricated of a resilient elastometric material and has an undulated shape adapted to deflect and maximize agitation of the game cube 28. It should be apparent that upon applying a turning motion to the handle 24, the shaft 16 will spin the turntable 26. As a result of the centrifugal force generated by the rotation, the game cubes 28 will move toward and engage the bumper member 32 and will “bounce” back toward the center of the turntable 26. This agitation will change the orientation of the faces of the game cube 28 in a random fashion. When the handle 24 is released the turntable 26 will eventually come to a rest position and each of the game cubes 28 will be stabilized on one of the faces, to reveal, on an upstanding face, a selected motif. The game apparatus further includes a wagering surface 32, as illustrated in FIG. 4, provided with a plurality of designated betting stations 34.

In accordance with the method of play, a player places a bet on one or more of the designated stations 34. The casino dealer rotates the handle 24 for “shuffling” or agitating the five game cubes 28 within the transparent dome 14. The six faces of each of the five cubes 28 contain images representative of the ace, king, queen, jack and 10 in the four conventional playing card suits, namely, spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds. Additionally, three of the cubes 28 contain a “$” symbol on two of the faces and two of the cubes contain a “diamond” symbol on two of the faces. As a result of the reduced number of “cards” represented by the thirty faces of the game cubes, the typical winning “poker hands” as previous discussed, have been limited in number.

By way of illustration, the game “payoffs”, are determined by the ranking of the poker hands, in this example there are 16 rankings, with the “royal flush” at the high end, and the double $ sign and “jacks or better” at the low end as shown in FIG. 4 and denoted below:

                                 Payoff (per
Rank                             winning combination)
# -1 Royal flush                 Pays $800
# -2 Four of a kind              Pays $25
# -3 Full house                  Pays $8
# -4 Straight                    Pays $4
# -5 Two pairs                   Pays $2
# -6 Three of a kind             Pays $3
# -7 ⋄ $ $ ⋄ (red)               Pays $5
# -8 ⋄ $ $ $ ⋄ (red or black ⋄)  Pays $8
with any pair
# -9 $ $ $ With jack's or better Pays $8
# -10 ⋄ ⋄ Any pair of cards with Pays $5
red ⋄ or with black ⋄
# -11 ⋄ ⋄ Red or black with      Pays $8
three of a kind
# -12 $ $ With three of a kind   Pays $8
# -13 ⋄ ⋄ Red or black           Pays $3
# -14 $ $ With jacks or better   Pays $3
# -15 $ $ $                      Pays $3
# -16 $ $                        Pays $1
# -17 Jacks or better            Pays $1.

It should be apparent that the card denominations, card suits and payoff odds have been indicated for illustrative purposes only and alternative arrangements are considered to be within the scope of this invention.

Further by way of example, the base member 12 can be approximately 22 inches in diameter; the dome 14 approximately 12 inches in height and the turntable approximately 13.5 inches in diameter with the game cubes being each approximately 1.5 inches per side.

While only a single preferred embodiment of the present invention has been disclosed herein for purposes of illustration, it is obvious that many variations and modifications could be made thereto. It is intended that this invention will cover all of these variations and modifications which fall within the scope of the present invention, as defined by the following claims.

Claims

1. A poker cube game apparatus comprising a substantially horizontal base member, a transparent dome secure to the base member in an overlying relationship, a substantially vertical shaft extending through the dome and journaled for rotation within the base member, a handle at an upper end of the shaft for rotating the shaft, a substantially circular turntable affixed to the shaft and positioned within the dome and above the base member, a bumper member mounted to the base member in surrounding relationship to the turntable, a plurality of game cubes, each of said game cubes having six faces, at least some of the faces being configured with a motif corresponding to the face of a playing card, with said game cubes being freely moveable on the turntable.

2. A poker cube game apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein said game cubes are urged toward the bumper member during rotation of the turntable, said bumper member being adapted to deflect the game cube for randomizing the occurrence of a particular upstanding cube face when the turntable comes to a rest position.

3. A poker cube game apparatus as claimed in claim 2 wherein bumper member defines an undulated contact surface with the game cube for maximizing cube agitation.

4. A poker cube game apparatus as claimed in claim 1 further including a wagering surface, said surface defining a plurality of stations, said stations having indicia corresponding to different combinations of playing card motifs appearing on the cube faces.

5. A method of playing a poker cube game as claimed in claim 1 including the following steps:

(a) placing a bet within a selected station on a wagering surface;

(b) rotating the shaft to spin the turntable;

(c) agitating the cubes by contact with the bumper member;

(d) reading the motifs on the upstanding cube faces define a virtual poker hand when the turntable comes to a rest position;

(e) comparing the virtual poker hand with the bets; and

(f) determining if there is a winning bet.

6. A poker cube game apparatus comprising a plurality of six-sided game cubes with each of said sides being representative of the face of a different playing card, a substantially planar turntable for accommodating said game cubes on one of the respective cube sides, a transparent dome for enclosing said turntable and the game cubes, a shaft for rotating the turntable, said turntable including a peripheral bumper for contact with the game cubes during rotation, said bumper being effective for deflecting and agitating the cubes to randomize the occurrence of a particular upstanding side of said game cube when the turntable comes to a rest position.

7. A poker cube game apparatus as claimed in claim 6 wherein the upstanding sides of said game cubes are representative of a virtual poker hand.

8. A poker cube game apparatus as claimed in claim 7 further including a wagering surface containing a plurality of betting stations, said betting stations being denoted as selective poker hands, with correspondence to the virtual poker hand being determine of a winning bet.