Poker is a fun game to play with a group of friends or as part of a league, and manually having to keep track of turns by passing a dealer chip around can get tiresome… quickly. Redditor tatey13 had the idea to build a custom poker table with some extra features that makes playing easier and more fun. 

The table started off as an old dining room table, which was promptly sanded and had a large oval cut from its center to make room for the lighting and a soft play surface. Additionally, eight spaces were created around the table at even intervals that each have a metal container and a light-up pushbutton for getting user inputs. A long LED strip was also glued to the inner edge of the table to provide information about the current turn and timing.

In order to control everything, an Arduino Mega was selected due to its large amount of flash storage and GPIO pins. It begins by waiting for players to join, and after 20 seconds have elapsed from the first button press, the game starts. The dealer is chosen randomly, and the two spots to their immediate left are designated as the small and large blinds. If a player is taking too long, another player and the dealer can start a timer to move things along. Once everyone except a single player is remaining, the game is over, and the winner is shown with green LEDs. 

You can see the table in action by watching tatey13’s video below!