1. A sensing apparatus for the determination of at least one of rank or suit of a playing card, comprising: a card-imaging array capable of sensing at least an area of a card representing rank and/or suit; a card position sensor; and a hardware component capable of receiving signals from the card-imaging array and the card position sensor, wherein the hardware component forms a vector set from an output from the card-imaging array and the card position sensor, and compares the vector set to known reference vector sets to determine rank and suit of a card.