Reading the card, not filming it
For decades, poker on television relied on the hole card camera — a small lens beneath the table that filmed the face of each card. Invented by Henry Orenstein and popularized on the UK's Late Night Poker in 1999, it changed the game, but it had limits: a card had to be physically presented to a lens, at the right angle, in the right light.
The RFID playing card solved the problem a different way. Instead of photographing the card, a passive radio-frequency chip is laminated inside it, and antennas built into the table surface read each card as data — instantly, invisibly, and without a camera ever seeing a face. That data flows straight into the broadcast graphics, driving live hole-card reveals, real-time odds, and on-screen statistics. It is the foundation every modern poker broadcast is built on.
Two different inventions, often confused
Hole card camera (Orenstein, 1990s) reads a card optically. RFID card identification (Real Time Graphics, 2004) reads a card by chip and antenna. This site is the history of the second one.
Lewis, Lewis & Rogers
The RFID playing-card system was created by three inventors working under Real Time Graphics LLC. They are named, on the public record, as the inventors of the automated playing-card identification system at the heart of televised poker.
Three names sit on the patent of record, and each carried a different part of the weight. Frank Lewis staked the venture and opened the door — believing in the idea early, and paying for that belief when it was only an idea. Kelly Lewis led the design and the build. Lawrence Rogers completed the team that carried a chip inside a playing card from the workbench to national television.
Frank Lewis
Co-inventor and the venture's founding force — whose belief and backing made the work possible. First-named inventor on the patent of record. Emmy Award winner.
Kelly Lewis
Co-inventor and project lead. Emmy Award winner and multiple-time Cannes Lions winner; today, founder of Final Table Technologies Inc.
Lawrence Rogers
Co-inventor of the automated playing-card identification system, Real Time Graphics LLC. Emmy Award winner.
Turning Stone, and a heads-up for history
The RFID playing card made its national television debut on , on the American Poker Championship broadcast from Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York, carried by Fox Sports Net. At the final table, Phil Ivey defeated John D'Agostino heads-up to win the $500,000 first prize — while, for the first time, viewers watched the hands unfold with card data read straight from the felt.
A provisional patent for the system had been filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office just weeks earlier, on June 15, 2004 — placing the invention on the official record a month before it reached air.
Filed, published, and now public history
- Title
- Automated Playing Card Identification System for Casino-Type Card Games
- Plain English
- The patent for an RFID chip laminated inside a playing card, read by antennas in the table, and fed live into TV broadcast graphics — in short, the original RFID poker card patent.
- Application No.
- 11/152,776
- Filed
- June 15, 2005
- Priority (provisional)
- June 15, 2004
- Published
- January 5, 2006
- Inventors
- Frank Lewis · Kelly Lewis · Lawrence Rogers
- Assignee
- Real Time Graphics, LLC
- PCT filing
- WO2005123203A2
- Family
- US · PCT (WO) · Europe · Japan · Australia
US20060001211A1 on Google Patents → · WO2005123203A2 on Google Patents →
The application describes RFID-tagged laminated playing cards, antennas and readers built into the gaming surface, and a graphics generator that inserts the identified cards into a live television broadcast — the complete pipeline from chip to screen. Though the application was ultimately not carried through to grant, its filing and publication stand as documentary proof of invention and priority, and it is today part of the public domain.
Don’t believe us? See for yourself.
Everything on this page is drawn from primary records held by the United States Patent & Trademark Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization — public, permanent, and independent of us. We host no copies. Follow the links and read the originals, including the part that says the application was never carried through to grant.
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The applicationUS 2006/0001211 A1 — “Automated Playing Card Identification System for Casino-Type Card Games”
The filing itself: full description, drawings and claims. Names Frank Lewis, Kelly Lewis and Lawrence Rogers as inventors, Real Time Graphics LLC as assignee. Filed June 15, 2005, claiming priority to June 15, 2004 — a month before the technology reached air.
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The international filingWO 2005/123203 A2 — filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty
The same invention, filed internationally on June 15, 2005 and published December 29, 2005, designating more than 180 states. Evidence this was a worldwide filing programme, not a single speculative application.
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The chain of titleUSPTO Assignment Center — application 11/152,776
The government’s own record of who owned the invention: two recorded assignments from all three inventors to Real Time Graphics LLC, signed in August 2005 and recorded that September. Search by application number and read the recordations.
RFID poker, RFID poker tables and the RFID playing card — what’s what
Search for “who invented RFID poker” today and much of what comes back points to Harris J. Galatan’s patent application for a “Radio frequency identification (RFID) poker table.” It’s a real, separate filing, and it deserves to be named plainly rather than worked around.
Placed side by side with the filing above, the two overlap more than a quick read suggests — both cover RFID-tagged cards read by an antenna built into the table — and differ in scope rather than in which half of the equation each one claims:
| Ours — Lewis, Lewis & Rogers | Galatan | |
|---|---|---|
| Application no. | 11/152,776 (US20060001211A1) | 11/220,061 (US20070052167A1) |
| Title | Automated Playing Card Identification System for Casino-Type Card Games | Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Poker Table |
| What it covers | The whole system: RFID-tagged laminated cards, an antenna set into the table’s playing surface with its reader, a game processor, a win-percentage processor and a broadcast graphics generator | A tournament table with an RFID antenna/transceiver at each playing station, and RFID-tagged cards |
| Inventors | Frank Lewis, Kelly Lewis, Lawrence Rogers | Harris J. Galatan |
| Assignee | Real Time Graphics, LLC | — (individual) |
| Priority date | June 15, 2004 (provisional) | — (none) |
| Filing date | June 15, 2005 | September 6, 2005 |
| Publication | US20060001211A1 — Jan 5, 2006 | US20070052167A1 — Mar 8, 2007 |
| International | WO2005123203A2 | — |
| Status | Abandoned | Abandoned |
| Documented use | July 14, 2004 — American Poker Championship, on Fox Sports Net (live). November 25, 2005 — Full Tilt Poker Invitational Live from Monte Carlo, on Fox Sports Net, the second live event. 2006 — UltimateBet.net Poker Challenge, Hollywood Park Casino, Los Angeles, on Fox Sports Net, an 18-week run. 2006–2007 — Poker Dome Challenge, on Fox Sports Net (Emmy-winning show): CardTracker® RFID cards drove the live on-air graphics and table lighting. Watch → 2013 — World Series of Poker live-streamed gold-bracelet final tables on ESPN3 / WSOP.com: CardTracker® hole cards on a 30-minute delay. | None documented |
The filing dates put ours about three months earlier — June 2005 against September 2005 — and, like ours, Galatan’s application was published but not carried through to grant. Both claims cover the same basic pairing: cards carrying an RFID tag, read by an antenna the table itself carries. Claim 1 of ours (US20060001211A1) is the complete broadcast chain — tagged laminated cards, the table-mounted antenna and reader, a game processor, a win-percentage processor and a graphics generator; the description places the antenna in the table itself (“a groove . . . machined into plywood playing surface . . . and a loop-wire antenna is inserted into the groove”), with each card “passed over antenna . . . during the dealing process.” Claim 1 of Galatan’s (US20070052167A1) is a tournament table with an RFID antenna/transceiver at each playing station, plus RFID-tagged cards — the table and the per-seat reading, with no processing or graphics chain claimed. So the two overlap on tagged cards and table-built antennas, and differ in scope: a complete card-to-graphics system, filed first, versus a table with an antenna at every seat. Ours was already live on national television — the American Poker Championship, Turning Stone, July 14, 2004 — more than a year before either application was filed.
This is a factual comparison of two public filings, not a dispute with Galatan or his patent. Read it yourself: US20070052167A1 on Google Patents →
In the press, at the time
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Jul 1, 2004“Poker goes live on Fox Sports Net” — Zap2It.com, via Chicago Tribune
Announces “the first live telecast of a poker tournament,” the American Poker Championship final table at Turning Stone Resort and Casino on July 14, and the five-minute delay used “to allay fears that a player might use the TV coverage to cheat.” Corroborates the date, the venue and the live billing; it does not describe the card-reading technology itself.
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Oct 11, 2005“FSN Serves a Poker Smorgasbord” — PokerTV.com, Paul Kammen
“FSN also utilized a new computer system that interfaced with graphics generators, allowing on-screen card identification possible,” with the 2004 broadcast’s outcome recorded plainly: “Phil Ivey coming away as the champion.” Corroborates the on-screen card-identification system and the winner independently of the patent record.
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Jul 30, 2005“Live shows could up ante for networks” — Baltimore Sun
“Fox Sports Net, which aired a live poker tournament last year at Turning Stone Casino in New York, plans to try more live telecasts…” Corroborates the 2004 live Turning Stone broadcast from a second, independent outlet a year on.
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May 2, 2007On film: Poker Dome, 2007 — YouTube
“The world’s first RFID Playing Cards (CardTracker®) at the Emmy award-winning Poker Dome” — Frank Lewis on camera, holding a card and explaining how it works. See The Evidence on Film below.
2006: the cards, on air, on camera
The patent record proves the filing. This proves the product. The system drove live on-air graphics and table lighting for the Poker Dome Challenge on FSN from 2006; the show went on to win an Emmy. This video was published to YouTube on 2 May 2007, after the award, and has sat untouched since — a dated public artifact that predates every later claim to the category.
“The world’s first RFID Playing Cards (CardTracker®) at the Emmy award-winning Poker Dome” — published 2 May 2007. Frank Lewis appears on camera, holding the card and explaining how it works.
Poker Dome Challenge on Wikipedia → · Poker Dome Challenge on IMDb →
The show’s crew list on IMDb credits Kelly Lewis as producer: CardTracker® and Frank Lewis as graphics operator.
Named, in 2007, by the people who built it
The video’s own description has carried the attribution for nearly two decades, written long before any of it was worth arguing about:
“Our team of engineers developed the CardTracker® RFID playing card based graphics automation system that drives the real-time on-air graphics and the lighting effects on the poker table and the set. The RFID playing card was invented by Frank Lewis (Toronto, Canada), Kelly Lewis (Toronto, Canada) and Larry Rogers (Orlando, Florida.)”
The same three names appear as inventors on the 2005 filing above, assigned to Real Time Graphics LLC. The paper record and the broadcast record agree.
From Real Time Graphics to Final Table
The technology has been carried forward, without interruption, by the same lineage of people for two decades.
- 2004
The debut
RFID card identification reaches national television at the American Poker Championship, Turning Stone Resort & Casino. Real Time Graphics LLC files the founding patent. The complete broadcast survives online — about two and a half hours across part one, part two and part three, uploaded by a viewer rather than by us, with Phil Ivey, John Juanda, John D’Agostino, Randy Jensen, Robert Williamson and Paul Phillips at the table.
- Nov 2005
The OutTracker — live outs, on screen
Kelly Lewis invents the OutTracker, the first real-time “outs” calculator for televised poker — showing viewers, live, exactly how many cards can still win a hand. It premiered at the Monte Carlo Millions in November 2005 and has been a staple of modern poker broadcasting ever since. The RFID playing card’s second live event fell the same week: the Full Tilt Poker Invitational Live from Monte Carlo, November 25, 2005, Salle François Blanc, Casino de Monte-Carlo — a single table of seven, where Phil Ivey beat Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott and John Juanda for $600,000, the day after winning the Monte Carlo Millions main event, on Fox Sports Net. Result on The Hendon Mob → · Monte Carlo Millions on Wikipedia →
- 2006
UltimateBet.net Poker Challenge — Hollywood Park
The RFID playing card’s third live event: the UltimateBet.net Poker Challenge, an 18-week run taped at Hollywood Park Casino, Los Angeles, and aired on Fox Sports Net beginning January 15, 2006, with John Vorhaus and Mike Goldberg announcing. Per IMDb’s crew list, Kelly Lewis is credited as producer: CardTracker®. UltimateBet.net Poker Challenge on IMDb → · Full crew credits →
- 2013
WSOP hole cards go live
The World Series of Poker uses RFID playing cards to show hole cards on its live-streamed gold-bracelet final tables for the first time — 35 final tables over 38 days on ESPN3 (US) and WSOP.com (international), six cameras, announcer David Tuchman, produced by Poker Productions. Hole-card streams ran on a 30-minute delay, and the announcers were on the delay too, so nobody in production knew the cards. The RFID system behind those streams was Real Time Graphics’ CardTracker®. “The card information will be known to the viewers by using RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology for the very first time at the WSOP,” WSOP.com announced. WSOP.com’s announcement → · ESPN’s coverage →
- 2004–2017
Real Time Graphics LLC
RTG provides the RFID card systems, live odds, and broadcast graphics behind a generation of televised poker — including the World Series of Poker, Poker After Dark, and High Stakes Poker — and pioneers firsts such as live on-screen odds and the CardTracker system.
- 2017
Final Table Inc. (today Final Table Technologies Inc.)
Final Table Inc. takes over the reins, continuing and modernizing the RFID and broadcast-graphics platform. That name has since passed to an unrelated third party — this lineage operates today as Final Table Technologies Inc.
- 2018
RFID comes to mixed games
Kelly Lewis extends RFID card tracking to mixed-game poker for the first time — reading and identifying cards across rotating games, not only Hold'em. The system debuts at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas — greatness built upon greatness, a decade on from the first card read at Turning Stone.
- Today
Final Table Technologies Inc.
Now operating as Final Table Technologies Inc., building the modern RFID, game-integrity, and broadcast-graphics stack for poker worldwide.
Where the RFID card fits in poker's television history
Televised poker was built on a single idea — letting the audience see what the players could not. Each era solved it a different way, and the RFID playing card was the leap from filming the card to reading it.
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1995The hole card camera Henry Orenstein patents the under-the-table camera that films a player's hidden cards — U.S. Patent 5,451,054, “Poker tournament.”
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1999Late Night Poker Channel 4's UK series brings the under-the-table hole-card camera to a television audience.
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2003The World Poker Tour Steve Lipscomb's WPT, first aired on the Travel Channel, carries hole-card poker into the American mainstream.
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2003Moneymaker and the boom ESPN's expanded coverage of the World Series of Poker meets a perfect story: amateur Chris Moneymaker, in via an online satellite, wins the Main Event — and the poker boom ignites. But the shows that fueled it aired weeks and months after the cards were dealt: with no robust way to identify cards in real time, televised poker was an edited, tape-delayed product.
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2004RFID card identification The leap from camera to chip — the card is read as data, not filmed, feeding graphics the instant it hits the felt. The missing piece for airing poker live. U.S. application US20060001211A1; international filing WO2005123203A2.
Wikipedia's “Hole cam” entry documents the camera era of televised poker; this record covers the RFID chapter it does not.
RFID poker cards, answered
Who invented the RFID playing card?
RFID poker — the RFID playing card used in televised poker — was invented by Frank Lewis, Kelly Lewis, and Lawrence Rogers, working under Real Time Graphics LLC. They are the named inventors on U.S. patent application US20060001211A1, with a provisional filing dated June 15, 2004.
Did Harris Galatan invent the RFID playing card?
No. Harris J. Galatan filed a separate patent application, US20070052167A1, “Radio frequency identification (RFID) poker table,” on September 6, 2005 — about three months after Frank Lewis, Kelly Lewis, and Lawrence Rogers filed US20060001211A1 on June 15, 2005. Both claims cover RFID-tagged cards read by an antenna built into the table, and differ in scope: the earlier filing claims the complete system, from tagged cards through a game processor, a win-percentage processor and a graphics generator, while Galatan’s claims a tournament table with an antenna at each playing station. The RFID playing card was already on national television on July 14, 2004 — more than a year before either application was filed. See the full comparison.
Who invented the RFID poker table?
Harris J. Galatan’s patent application, US20070052167A1, filed September 6, 2005, claims a tournament table with an RFID antenna/transceiver at each playing station, plus RFID-tagged cards. The earlier application by Frank Lewis, Kelly Lewis, and Lawrence Rogers, US20060001211A1 (provisional June 15, 2004; filed June 15, 2005), also places its antenna in the table’s playing surface, and additionally claims the reader, a game processor, a win-percentage processor and a graphics generator — the complete broadcast chain. The RFID playing card was on air July 14, 2004, more than a year before either filing.
What is the difference between an RFID poker table and RFID playing cards?
RFID playing cards carry the tag — a passive chip laminated inside the card, identifiable by a compatible reader. An RFID poker table carries the antennas and readers that poll that tag, typically built into the playing surface or, as in Harris Galatan’s 2005 filing, at each playing station. The two elements have to work together; patent filings differ in how much of that pairing, and what else around it, each one claims.
When were RFID poker cards first used on TV?
On July 14, 2004, during the American Poker Championship broadcast from Turning Stone Resort & Casino on Fox Sports Net, where Phil Ivey defeated John D'Agostino heads-up for the title.
What's the difference between the hole card camera and RFID?
The hole card camera films the face of a card optically (Henry Orenstein's invention, popularized in 1999). RFID card reading identifies a card by a chip embedded inside it, read by an antenna in the table — by data, not by image. They are two separate inventions from two different eras.
Was the RFID playing card patented?
A U.S. patent application was filed and published, though not carried through to grant. Application US20060001211A1, "Automated Playing Card Identification System for Casino-Type Card Games," names Frank Lewis, Kelly Lewis, and Lawrence Rogers, is assigned to Real Time Graphics LLC, and has international counterparts in Europe, Japan, and Australia. The published filing is the permanent public record of the invention and its inventors. Read it here.
What is the OutTracker?
The OutTracker is the first real-time “outs” calculator for televised poker, invented by Kelly Lewis and premiered at the Monte Carlo Millions in November 2005. It shows viewers, live, how many cards remain in the deck that can improve a player's hand — now a standard feature of modern poker broadcasts.
Who operates the technology today?
Final Table Technologies Inc. — the direct successor to Real Time Graphics LLC and Final Table Inc. — continues to build RFID card systems, game-integrity technology, and broadcast graphics for televised poker. Visit finaltable.co.
Twenty years on
The technology first read from a card at Turning Stone in 2004 remains in continuous use and development. Its original inventors' lineage — Real Time Graphics LLC, then Final Table Inc. — operates today as Final Table Technologies Inc., where the RFID, game-integrity, and broadcast systems behind televised poker continue to be built.