My father in law likes to buy gimmicky presents for the kids and when my stepson was going through a phase of playing card games, he was brought a Things Deluxe Automatic Card Shuffler gadget as a joke present by my father in law.

We quite often like to play card games in the evening when the whole family are there and the one thing we always argued over was 'who's going to shuffle the cards?', so although this contraption was purchased as a gimmicky joke, it has actually come in rather handy in our house hold.

The card shuffler is really easy to use. It has two black plastic sides and you place half the pack on one side of the machine and the other half of the pack on the other side of the machine. Then you simply press the button in the middle of the pack and the cards are drawn into the machine, taking a card from each side at a time, and then they are dispensed at the bottom of the machine in the random order they are taken in to the machine.

It literally takes seconds for the machine to do its job and the machine does work really well. So far, we have never had a situation where the cards have got jammed in the machine or damaged in the machine.

To use this machine you do need 4x AA batteries which aren't included but the batteries do last forever before needing replacing. We have owned ours for ages and I think the batteries have only been changed once during that time. The machine is only small so it doesn't take up any storage space and will easily fit into any drawer or cupboard whilst not in use.

As I didn't purchase it myself, I wasn't sure of the price so I have had to source the price for this review. The cheapest I have found it was £7.49, which is a half price offer at the moment from Argos. I was quite surprised at the prices this gadget goes for. I expected it to be around a fiver as although we use it a lot, it isn't something that would be considered a necessity in life and as it is only a fun gadget, I didn't expect it to cost this much.

Apparently the machine can take up to two decks of cards in one go but this is something I have never tried as we only tend to play games that need just one deck of cards but it works extremely well with one deck of cards, so I have no hesitation that it wouldn't have a problem with two decks of cards.

Overall, if you are a regular card player but have a little trouble with shuffling then this is a pretty handy gadget and although it isn't something that is needed in the home, it does get used a lot in our house. I do think it is generally overpriced for what it is, but it is fun and so therefore it comes with a recommendation from me.