The cards are pre-shuffled at the manufacturer. It's a smart move since the casinos don't have to spend time dealing with shuffling cards manually (and losing time) or automatically (and investing in expensive machines).
The whole situation came up because the playing card manufacturer forgot to shuffle the cards before packaging. So all the cards came in the same pattern out of the box, which I'm assuming is determined by how they were cut from the sheet or whatever is done. There's no mention that they came out in suit/count order (like the packs most people normally buy in stores).
The mini-baccarat game seems to take 6-8 packs and combine them into a large shoe. The pattern would not have been obvious after the first 52 cards but when the next 52 showed up in the same order, that's when the betting started going nuts.
It's a smart move, but it opens them up to black swan events like this, that shuffling the cards themselves wouldn't.
Right now the cost of a deck is negligible, but if the card manufacturers start being on the hook to the tune of millions of dollars for a handful of decks not being shuffled, pre-shuffled decks are going to get more expensive, as additional QC and insurance that the card manufacturers have to buy get passed on. Eventually it'll turn back into a real cost/benefit analysis: do we make enough on casino customers losses in this game to justify $10/pack or $50/pack decks?
The whole situation came up because the playing card manufacturer forgot to shuffle the cards before packaging. So all the cards came in the same pattern out of the box, which I'm assuming is determined by how they were cut from the sheet or whatever is done. There's no mention that they came out in suit/count order (like the packs most people normally buy in stores).
The mini-baccarat game seems to take 6-8 packs and combine them into a large shoe. The pattern would not have been obvious after the first 52 cards but when the next 52 showed up in the same order, that's when the betting started going nuts.