BTW Not to criticize the shuffle, but List::Util has a standard shuffle method available

  use List::Util qw( shuffle );

  my @list = shuffle 0 .. 51; # shuffle the deck of cards
[download]

FYI List::Util was first released with perl 5.007003 so it is safe to use it in 5.8.x. It is not in 5.6.2, but available on CPAN.