I have no idea what is printed on the very edge of the card so the machine can read it. I sure can't see it. And of course I'm just going by what the dealer was telling me. Maybe all it's doing is counting the cards, like Gene said. Whatever, it's a step the dealer performs after shuffling and before dealing. Imagine holding the deck perfectly square, then "angling" it slightly in your hand so you can easily deal each individual card. Doing so doesn't reveal the faces even if you can see the bottom of the deck. The stack is offset such that about 1 or 2 100ths of an inch along the edge of each face is "revealed." But the deck is face-down in a hole. They aren't revealed to me .