We play Skip.Bo with two sets, i.e. 324 cards. Shuffling these by hand is a Sisyphean task. A solution had to be found, a card shuffler! But I didn’t want to spend a fortune on it.

If you look around, your ears prick up, because usable devices start at 500 EUR, professional ones cost a thousand on top!

This battery-operated appliance is actually the cheapest on the market! And it has the largest capacity! The latter was the deciding factor for me.

So I bought the cheapest card shuffler I could find, which also has the worst reviews on Amazon. 🙂 Logical, right? 🙂

I have already written about the quality of the questions and answers on Amazon. The same applies to the reviews, of course.

Transparency

I ordered and paid for the device myself on Amazon. Neither the manufacturer nor Amazon or eBay have had any influence on this test or sponsored me in any way. All opinions and reviews expressed here are based solely on my own experience with the product.

If you click on one of the product links marked as advertising, this is an affiliate link. This means that I receive a small commission if you buy something through it – there are no additional costs for you. This income helps me to finance further tests and reviews as well as the many other contents on this website.

Mixing methods

There are countless ways to shuffle cards. The most common are probably these:

Riffle shuffle

Also known as a bridge or bow shuffle. The cards are divided into two piles and then „fanned“ into each other with the thumbs so that they overlap alternately. This is also how this card shuffler works. Only with many more cards and much faster than by hand.

Pile shuffle

Also known as pile shuffling. The cards are placed in several piles and then put back together again.

Automatic shuffle

Card shuffling machines, at least the simplest ones, work with the riffle shuffle method. This method is best combined with the pile shuffle, in which the cards from the deck are always placed in small piles on the left and right of the machine for the next pass.

Skip.bo

We play Skip-Bo with two sets of cards in order to have a larger draw pile and not have to reshuffle the discard pile during the game. This allows us to finish the game in one go. Manually shuffling 324 cards is practically impossible as they are completely sorted after each round of the game.

Again and again we had roads, which (negatively) speeds up the flow of the game and takes the strategic element out of the game. It’s no fun that way.

A card shuffler could help here. I asked around and people all advised against the devices with a hand crank. Besides, they could only shuffle two sets at once. The cheapest card shuffler on the market is also one of the biggest and can shuffle up to six decks (312 cards) at once.

It costs just EUR 12.99 on Amazon and eBay, including shipping. I was prepared to invest this huge sum. Let’s just eat bread for the next month! 🙂

The device can easily cope with the 324 cards in our Skip.Bo set. These are shuffled once in just under ten seconds, which corresponds to a throughput of 33 cards per second. That’s really fast!

We shuffle the cards three to four times. However, we always place partial stacks on the left and right of the machine’s feed trays. As a result, Skip.Bo is much more varied and interesting to play. We are very satisfied!

German hand

A German hand with only 32 cards can be shuffled in just one second. It remains to be seen whether a machine for so few cards makes sense. However, if younger children still have problems with shuffling, such a machine is certainly practical and fun.

Multiple runs are no challenge for the machine.

Wizard

The Wizard cards have a completely different feel. They feel much smoother. Does the Card Shuffler have problems with this? No!

Unstable Unicorns

What about the thinner and wider cards of the game Unstable Unicorns? This is where the device starts to weaken. As you can’t adjust the size and thickness of the cards, it tends to jam here. A quick shake of the device and the game continues. Not a big deal, but we suspect that we could have problems with very special playing cards.

Top ten

No problems with Top Ten!

Hitster

Hitster cardsare much smaller than normal playing cards. I thought the box wouldn’t cope, but it went better than expected and, above all, faster than by hand. Nevertheless, the small but wider cards get jammed in the output slot.

Illusion

Addendum: The cards from Illusion are also great for shuffling. A good game for all ages. Similar to Hitster or Anno Domini (whose cards cannot be shuffled with the device!), except that here you have to arrange the cards in ascending order according to the proportion of a certain colour.

Batteries

Let’s move on to the elephant in the room – or rather, to a technological relic from times gone by: baby cells, also known as type C batteries. Unfortunately, the card shuffler requires these ancient batteries.

This type of battery had its day in the 1970s, when it offered an acceptable balance between capacity and size for portable or motorised devices. At that time, AA or AAA batteries were not yet common, as the zinc-carbon battery technology simply offered too little power and capacity for such small batteries.

But times have changed! Over the past few decades, battery technology has made enormous progress. Modern AA batteries (mignon cells) now offer a significantly higher energy density and performance compared to the old type C cells (baby cells).

You can see that a modern alkaline mignon cell can easily replace a zinc-carbon baby cell. Especially in a device design that is just as old. On top of this, it should not be forgotten that electric motor technology has also made enormous progress and even the cheap electric motor in this card shuffler is much more efficient than its derivative from fifty years ago.

Why am I even mentioning this? Because a number of smart alecks keep saying that baby cells should not be replaced by AA cells in adapters because neither the capacity nor the amperage would be sufficient. However, this only applies to modern devices that were developed for alkaline baby cells and not to such old toys.

How do I replace the baby cells with AA cells? With an adapter set(Amazon or eBay), which you can also print out yourself for a few cents.

Pro

• Price!
• Mixes quickly and thoroughly
• Works great with AA cells when using adapters

Cons

• Cheapest plastic
• Size and thickness of the cards are not adjustable
• Mixing process is loud (86 dBA)

Video

Conclusion

For around EUR 13, you get a card shuffler that fulfils expectations. The plastic housing may not be of very high quality, but the device reliably shuffles a large number of cards – well over 300 – in around 10 seconds. This is remarkable, especially compared to the tedious manual shuffling.

Loading and unloading is also quick. After three to four passes, the cards are well shuffled.

Recommendation to buy? Yes, I would buy the shuffler again, as there is no alternative in this size and for this quantity of cards. shuffling 324 cards by hand is simply exhausting. And this inexpensive card shuffler is the perfect solution!

Buy it?

12.99 EUR is the price on Amazon and Ebay incl. shipping. The seller is also the manufacturer/importer: Relaxdays. In the event of a complaint, you can certainly expect a certain level of service here.