-
This site contains affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking a link, Poker Chip Forum may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!
PCF member dennis63 becomes a real casino dealer (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter dennis63
- Start date
CdnBeerLover
Full House
Great read, indeed. Carry on. (y) :thumbsup:
links_slayer
4 of a Kind
Interesting. I've only ever seen dealers drop tips into a box that they carry with them from table to table. I was under the impression that the chips dropping into the table go to the house, not the dealers?
I know I've already posted in this thread, but very much this (on the web, not just this forum). Engaging, informative, contemporary, entertaining. Long may this post retirement gig and thread continue!
Motherf$&*#r 
Different rooms different rules I know most of the ones near me are individual tip boxes but I know that there are some that pool the poker tips.
Motherfucker 
Yeah you'll get used to people getting pissed at you real quick... upside is that's probably a big part of the reason nearly nothing phases me and I take nothing personally at the poker table.
I once had an at-the-time second rate safety for the Steelers named Scott Shields try to come over the blackjack table at me one night... he took losing a bunch of dough fairly well for a JACKED asshole with an attitude but lost his shit once the floor informed him his alcohol privileges were being revoked. Guess he thought it was my fault... luckily they saw it coming and had two security guards standing behind him before they let him know, just in case. Sure was fun watching them drag his ass out
Yeah you'll get used to people getting pissed at you real quick... upside is that's probably a big part of the reason nearly nothing phases me and I take nothing personally at the poker table.
I once had an at-the-time second rate safety for the Steelers named Scott Shields try to come over the blackjack table at me one night... he took losing a bunch of dough fairly well for a JACKED asshole with an attitude but lost his shit once the floor informed him his alcohol privileges were being revoked. Guess he thought it was my fault... luckily they saw it coming and had two security guards standing behind him before they let him know, just in case. Sure was fun watching them drag his ass out
OP
OP
Motherfucker
Yeah you'll get used to people getting pissed at you real quick... upside is that's probably a big part of the reason nearly nothing phases me and I take nothing personally at the poker table.
I once had an at-the-time second rate safety for the Steelers named Scott Shields try to come over the blackjack table at me one night... he took losing a bunch of dough fairly well for a JACKED asshole with an attitude but lost his shit once the floor informed him his alcohol privileges were being revoked. Guess he thought it was my fault... luckily they saw it coming and had two security guards standing behind him before they let him know, just in case. Sure was fun watching them drag his ass out
One of the instructors told the story of a fighter who lost at the blackjack table. The police were called before they approached him, and he fought the police and casino security. They had to use a Taser.
"If you stay in the business long enough," he said, you'll have your own 'Taser Guy.'"
Waiting for Part Four!
Mental Nomad
Full House
In AC, these days, the poker room dealers carry their toke boxes with them to any table they deal, and they keep their own tokes. Stuff going into the other drops on the table are either for jackpots or for the rake, and don't go to the dealers.
All the other table games have toke boxes that stay on the table, and those tokes are split by all the dealers who work hours across all three shifts for the week. Every shift, the toke boxes are all dumped onto a single (dead) craps table, and a couple of dealers muck and rack them and security takes the tokes to the cage to count them down and log it. At the end of the week, the tokes are divided by the total hours worked across all shifts to come up with a "toke rate..." every dealer gets paid that amount in addition to their casino pay.
Back in 1991, I was getting about $4.25/hr from the house and about $12.50/hr from the toke rate, if I'm remembering right (plus all the food I can eat while on break.). We'd have all the toke rates from all the AC houses posted in the dealer's lounge, so we all knew where we stood in the city.
Any interesting stories here?
Mental Nomad
Full House
They're all chips, so it's not technically wrong to say. They're only checks (or cheques) if they're exchangeable for cash - but they're still chips, too.
It's kinda like a piece of a paper that says to pay you money from a particular bank account. We call it a check. It's still a piece of paper... but because it's redeemable for cash, we call it a check. (Or a cheque.)
Roulettes are chips, too - but it would be wrong to call them checks, because they're not redeemable for cash.
Even at poker, I still call them chips in tournaments, and checks in cash games.
I think the right way to say it depends on what your trainee is doing.
You need to quickly line up the chips with the first stack, so tapping into the stack is fine. If you're not hitting the stack - banging it lightly - then you're moving too slow. You need to learn to bump them.
But if you bang it so hard that the original stack moves, you're hitting it too hard! Stop bumping them! If you hit it that hard quickly, you can make the original stack fall down. If you hit it that hard but more slowly, you make the stack move over. You NEVER want to move the stack, for two reasons: first, it will confuse the issue if it's ever reviewed on replay. You want the original to be right where it was before you started cutting checks into it. Second reason is because moving the chip stack by bumping it is part of a common cheating move. You do NOT want your actions to resemble a cheater's moves!
Last edited:
OP
OP
Part 4: Things your Blackjack dealer knows
A new dealer can pick up a lot of things in class and on the casino floor in a very short time. You might find them interesting, so I’ll share some here.
As a new dealer, the job can be intense.
Aside from the game rules, payouts and table limits, you need to remember what everyone has bet – especially first and third base, where they’re more likely to cheat. Get the cards out fast, then count everyone’s card totals faster than they do, or they’ll be on you. Miscount the new total with the hits, on their hand or yours, and you’re an idiot. Pay no attention to what they say their total is. They’re probably saying a better number than they actually have. Take and pay winners and losers, remembering your hand total, and everyone else’s. Then keep the rack clean, and remember what your floor supervisor wants you to do first, second, third, etc. By hour eight, your brain is mush.
Dealing hurts your back
After eight hours, the constant, repetitive motion of dealing at a busy table can wreak havoc on your body. Your back hurts. Your ribs hurt. I’ve heard other dealers call it “pushing cards.”
Dealing at low-limit tables
There’s no getting around it. Everyone has to start somewhere, but there is a certain prestige associated with dealing in high-limit rooms. Dealing to the masses of players who stand three-deep to wait for a $5 table is considered the bottom of the casino ladder.
It takes a year or more to get good.
Dealer school doesn’t prepare you for the tsunami of rules, procedures and players. It’s just a start.
There’s a lot of money in the rack.
The rack at a $5 or $10 table probably contains about $35,000 in cheques. The highest value in that rack will be purple $500s. In the high-limit room, they have gold $1,000 cheques and even a few fire orange $5,000s, and the rack typically has over $300,000. Upstairs, they say, they have $100,000 cheques in a safe. They’ve never been used, but some managers have seen them.
The cheques are not as nice as you’d think
The cards are awesome. They change them every gaming day, bringing in two new, pre-shuffled six-deck packages of Gemaco casino cards at each table. But the chips can be coated in a concoction of sweat, booze, cigarette ash, dirt, and God-knows-what.
A supervisor can count your rack from two towns over
Dealers keep their rack “clean.” That means you keep it lammered off in stacks of 20 cheques whenever possible. If you have less than 20 cheques, you lammer them to make them easy to count: Five $5 cheques between lammers, four $25 cheques and a lammer, and five $100s. After that, odd numbers go on top.
Floor supervisors have the visual acuity fighter pilots, and can “read” a rack almost instantly from distances I find astounding. They can also read a stack on the table, from any angle, from about 20 feet away.
Dealers really do want to see the players win
It’s a fact. It’s not my money, so I’d rather see a player win $10,000 from the casino than watch him lose $100 five dollars at a time while cursing me.
The casino pretty much presumes everyone, including you, will steal from them.
Part of dealer orientation is meeting the investigator who will catch you if you think about taking a dollar. They’ve seen too much – too many scams and schemes pulled by the players, the dealers, the dealers working with the players, even trusted supervisors and casino officials – in the past.
Cameras are everywhere, and they’re manned. During training, a woman asked our instructor how many cameras they had in the casino. The answer is a secret, of course. (I know the number, and it is stunning.) When she asked, “How many people do they have watching the cameras?” he answered briefly. “They have enough.”
One of our instructors trained at the dawn of gaming in Atlantic City, where veterans of Las Vegas were flown in to be instructors. His first teacher was from Old Las Vegas and the days when the mob was deep into the casino industry.
“My first instructor had no thumbs,” he said.
It seems this man worked at a mob casino, and became involved in some shenanigans way back in the day. He was accused of stealing from the casino. As a punishment, the “businessmen” who ran place cut off both his thumbs.
“They liked him,” our instructor said. “If they didn’t, he would have been buried in the desert.”
My own brush with an accusation came on my second day of dealing. I was standing at a dead $10 table and a casino official in a suit came up behind me with an IPad. He looked at my rack, and looked at the IPad. “You’re short one $500 cheque,” he said. I almost crapped right there. My floor supervisor rushed over. “What’s the problem?” the Floor said. (He was known for being tough and rather abrupt.)
“He’s short one purple,” the man said.
“He is not short one purple.” said the supervisor, insisting that I had the same number the Floor had recorded. I started breathing again, but I think I saw a bright light and some dead relatives. I knew that I hadn't touched a purple cheque since arriving at work, but still imagined a body cavity search and a mugshot was coming my way.
The two men started in on each other. I heard the Floor say, “How long have you been doing this job?” the ultimate insult in the casino industry. Away they went, to where I could not hear them. My supervisor came back, so I figured someone’s IPad simply didn’t update. My integrity was saved, and this man became my new favorite floor supervisor. He could see I was still upset by it. “When you deal for me,” he said, “you don’t listen to anybody but me.”
Players cheat.
Aside from “past-posting,” (adding a chip or peeling one off after you see your cards), players will often say a total that’s better than what they actually have. You have to ignore whatever they say, and count their total very quickly.
Players give crappy hand signals, and have somehow mastered a movement which is part hit and part stay. They’ll say what they want. Give them a good card, and they’re fine. If the card breaks them, they instantly say they never signaled the hit. Give a card they want to the next player, and they’ll swear they signaled a hit. Delay a half second or ask them for a clear signal, and you’re the worst (expletive) dealer in the world. They’ll act like they don’t understand what you said, and just sit there, holding up your game. It’s their way of trying to see the card before they decide to take it. This happens often, all day long. It sucks. It also makes you love the players who give nice, clear hand signals.
Dealing can be dangerous
Players who lose money can be dangerous, profane and threatening. Occasionally, someone says they’ll be outside when you leave. Some casinos in Vegas have dealers leave in groups through a back door into a bus with tinted windows for a trip to some parking half a mile away from the casino. We have a player who plays calmly until he busts, then hits the table so hard, he has broken his hand.
Lots of dealers get fired.
There’s a point system. When you start, you’re allowed a small number of points in your first 90 days. Go over, and you’re fired – no questions asked, no appeal, and really no animosity. They may like you, but if you get the points, you gotta go. Hint: Fail to show up for work one day, and you’ll get enough points to get fired.
Lots of dealers quit.
Experienced dealers carry a lot of information in their heads. Remember, there are no notes, phones, laptops or calculators at the tables. They have to keep it all in their heads. It has value – to your casino, and to others. During a break on my first day, my shadow told me that our casino was losing five dealers a week – more than the classes were pumping out. Were they quitting? Were they getting fired? Were other things happening? Yes to all, he said.
Floor supervisors are really nice.
I mentioned this in a previous post. It’s worth mentioning again. They’re awesome.
Floor supervisors want it done their way.
They’re awesome, but they were all trained in different places. To each supervisor, their way makes the most sense, and that’s how they want it done. As a dealer, this means every supervisor will stop by and briefly, gently tell you that just about everything you are doing is wrong, or is being done in the wrong order. They’re not doing it to be mean. They’re trying to show you a better, easier way to do it. You accept it. You thank them. You do it their way.
Your 20-minute break goes fast.
As a dealer, you really do get a 20-minute break every hour or every hour and twenty minutes – usually the latter. To get to the restroom or break room, you need to walk a good distance, then go down a couple of flights of stairs. The “back of house” is a maze to the new guy, and I got briefly lost once. If you hit the restroom, you may have five minutes to sit down before it’s time to go back up.
The pay may eventually be great.
Early in our class, we were told we’d make about $25 per hour as a dealer. One casino official mentioned $30. So you get breaks every hour and 20 minutes, a free meal in the employee dining room every shift, and $25 or $30 an hour. Sounds good. Sign me up.
But most casinos actually pay their dealers minimum wage – less if their state allows it. My casino pools and shares tokes, dividing the total for that day by the number of dealer hours. Tokes are collected by two trusted dealers, and counted in the counting room. The toke rates are posted on a bulletin board. At some other casinos, dealers keep their own tokes.
But when you’re new, not all of your hours will get a share of the tokes. Employee orientation doesn’t. On my first day dealing, I thought I was making a share. I wasn’t. On my second day, I thought I was making tokes. I wasn’t.
And the casino deducts some of the expense of hiring you from your pay. Our state charges $350 for a gaming license. The casino generously pays it up front, but takes back $70 per paycheck for 10 weeks (five paychecks). My first week’s “net pay” was $10.58. (That’s not a typo. That’s ten dollars and fifty-eight cents.)
Two weeks later, I collected two weeks of pay. I got tips for some of those days, but not all. My gross pay came out to $18.79 per hour, and net pay – after taxes, deductions and license – was a little over $13 per hour. If I make it 10 weeks, my state license will be paid off, and my net pay will go up to something around $20 per hour. I was hired part-time, so no benefits, even though you can work 40 hours a week or more. Eventually, they say, if you're over 40 hours too often, they'll have to give you benefits.
Some people never tip.
The dealers here know what I’m talking about. Some people will bet $5, get blackjack, and tip the dealer the $2.50 chip. Others won’t tip, even if they win big. I heard about a player in high limit who won over $30,000, colored up and walked away. No tip. For some, it’s an honest personal belief. For others, tipping is foreign to their culture. It is what it is, and I understand everyone is different. It’s appreciated, not expected.
It’s nice to get tokes, because it means your player is winning and happy. It’s also more interesting when the player “puts the dealer in the game” by betting the toke. If the player wins, your toke wins, too. As a dealer, I understand that if you are losing, you won’t be tipping. I’d rather see you play and win.
You are not the only dealers
The casino has professional poker dealers, separate from table games. In Las Vegas, they have “Party Pit” dealers – young women who deal while wearing lingerie. We have “dealer-tainers,” who wear tiny little dresses when they deal in certain areas. And they look very nice in their dealer uniform. We were touring the back of house and one of them walked by. When she turned a corner, I told the instructor, “OK, I am not wearing that to deal.”
He looked me up and down. “Agreed,” he said, dryly.
The casino loves VIP players
Like many casinos, we have a multi-level affinity program. There are cards – all different colors, and the top tier card. To get the top tier card at this casino, you need to drop $750,000. (Seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.)
But that may not all be from your own bank account. If a player buys in for $10,000, bets and wins, say, $30,000, then loses all of it, he or she will be recorded as losing $30,000 that day. Players who do this get pretty much anything they want. Free meals, hotel rooms, etc. One high roller player, talking to the dealers outside a class, said he can call Las Vegas and get a room on a busy holiday weekend. He said, “If I want a room, they’ll pull someone’s reservation for me.”
“For $750,000,” I thought, “they should pull someone out of the shower.”
Some people live at the casino
They’re not supposed to, but we’ve seen people sleep in the slot machine chairs, “staying overnight” inside the casino for a two days or more. The most I’ve heard of so far is four days.
The casino industry’s biggest winner is state government
The state where I work takes 55 percent of the casino’s slot machine “win” as a tax. The tax on the table games “win” is 18 percent. The state charges $350 for each gaming license, and has a gaming license “tax” of around $12 per paycheck on your pay after that. The casino serves alcohol, so there’s an LCB tax on your pay, too -- maybe $2 a paycheck. That one really gets me. (There’s a long and storied history of bootlegging in my family, and paying tax on alcohol I can’t even drink just seems unnatural.)
If you’re a history buff, you’ll know that my state’s current slot machine tax is a bit more than what Al Capone took from his illegal nickel slots back in prohibition days. (He gave half the money to the bar owners, after all.) The state simply coopted what the mob was doing by making it legal.
Conclusion
I’ve really enjoyed sharing what is to me a new world here on PCF. Now it’s time for me to step aside and be a spectator in this thread and read the stories of our other dealer members, past and present. If you’ve been a dealer or will be someday, you have my greatest respect. Dealers really are, as one writer described them, “carnival barkers who can do calculus in their heads.”
Thank you for reading, and for the great comments. Please continue the thread with your own stories of dealing, playing, and winning at the tables.
A new dealer can pick up a lot of things in class and on the casino floor in a very short time. You might find them interesting, so I’ll share some here.
As a new dealer, the job can be intense.
Aside from the game rules, payouts and table limits, you need to remember what everyone has bet – especially first and third base, where they’re more likely to cheat. Get the cards out fast, then count everyone’s card totals faster than they do, or they’ll be on you. Miscount the new total with the hits, on their hand or yours, and you’re an idiot. Pay no attention to what they say their total is. They’re probably saying a better number than they actually have. Take and pay winners and losers, remembering your hand total, and everyone else’s. Then keep the rack clean, and remember what your floor supervisor wants you to do first, second, third, etc. By hour eight, your brain is mush.
Dealing hurts your back
After eight hours, the constant, repetitive motion of dealing at a busy table can wreak havoc on your body. Your back hurts. Your ribs hurt. I’ve heard other dealers call it “pushing cards.”
Dealing at low-limit tables
There’s no getting around it. Everyone has to start somewhere, but there is a certain prestige associated with dealing in high-limit rooms. Dealing to the masses of players who stand three-deep to wait for a $5 table is considered the bottom of the casino ladder.
It takes a year or more to get good.
Dealer school doesn’t prepare you for the tsunami of rules, procedures and players. It’s just a start.
There’s a lot of money in the rack.
The rack at a $5 or $10 table probably contains about $35,000 in cheques. The highest value in that rack will be purple $500s. In the high-limit room, they have gold $1,000 cheques and even a few fire orange $5,000s, and the rack typically has over $300,000. Upstairs, they say, they have $100,000 cheques in a safe. They’ve never been used, but some managers have seen them.
The cheques are not as nice as you’d think
The cards are awesome. They change them every gaming day, bringing in two new, pre-shuffled six-deck packages of Gemaco casino cards at each table. But the chips can be coated in a concoction of sweat, booze, cigarette ash, dirt, and God-knows-what.
A supervisor can count your rack from two towns over
Dealers keep their rack “clean.” That means you keep it lammered off in stacks of 20 cheques whenever possible. If you have less than 20 cheques, you lammer them to make them easy to count: Five $5 cheques between lammers, four $25 cheques and a lammer, and five $100s. After that, odd numbers go on top.
Floor supervisors have the visual acuity fighter pilots, and can “read” a rack almost instantly from distances I find astounding. They can also read a stack on the table, from any angle, from about 20 feet away.
Dealers really do want to see the players win
It’s a fact. It’s not my money, so I’d rather see a player win $10,000 from the casino than watch him lose $100 five dollars at a time while cursing me.
The casino pretty much presumes everyone, including you, will steal from them.
Part of dealer orientation is meeting the investigator who will catch you if you think about taking a dollar. They’ve seen too much – too many scams and schemes pulled by the players, the dealers, the dealers working with the players, even trusted supervisors and casino officials – in the past.
Cameras are everywhere, and they’re manned. During training, a woman asked our instructor how many cameras they had in the casino. The answer is a secret, of course. (I know the number, and it is stunning.) When she asked, “How many people do they have watching the cameras?” he answered briefly. “They have enough.”
One of our instructors trained at the dawn of gaming in Atlantic City, where veterans of Las Vegas were flown in to be instructors. His first teacher was from Old Las Vegas and the days when the mob was deep into the casino industry.
“My first instructor had no thumbs,” he said.
It seems this man worked at a mob casino, and became involved in some shenanigans way back in the day. He was accused of stealing from the casino. As a punishment, the “businessmen” who ran place cut off both his thumbs.
“They liked him,” our instructor said. “If they didn’t, he would have been buried in the desert.”
My own brush with an accusation came on my second day of dealing. I was standing at a dead $10 table and a casino official in a suit came up behind me with an IPad. He looked at my rack, and looked at the IPad. “You’re short one $500 cheque,” he said. I almost crapped right there. My floor supervisor rushed over. “What’s the problem?” the Floor said. (He was known for being tough and rather abrupt.)
“He’s short one purple,” the man said.
“He is not short one purple.” said the supervisor, insisting that I had the same number the Floor had recorded. I started breathing again, but I think I saw a bright light and some dead relatives. I knew that I hadn't touched a purple cheque since arriving at work, but still imagined a body cavity search and a mugshot was coming my way.
The two men started in on each other. I heard the Floor say, “How long have you been doing this job?” the ultimate insult in the casino industry. Away they went, to where I could not hear them. My supervisor came back, so I figured someone’s IPad simply didn’t update. My integrity was saved, and this man became my new favorite floor supervisor. He could see I was still upset by it. “When you deal for me,” he said, “you don’t listen to anybody but me.”
Players cheat.
Aside from “past-posting,” (adding a chip or peeling one off after you see your cards), players will often say a total that’s better than what they actually have. You have to ignore whatever they say, and count their total very quickly.
Players give crappy hand signals, and have somehow mastered a movement which is part hit and part stay. They’ll say what they want. Give them a good card, and they’re fine. If the card breaks them, they instantly say they never signaled the hit. Give a card they want to the next player, and they’ll swear they signaled a hit. Delay a half second or ask them for a clear signal, and you’re the worst (expletive) dealer in the world. They’ll act like they don’t understand what you said, and just sit there, holding up your game. It’s their way of trying to see the card before they decide to take it. This happens often, all day long. It sucks. It also makes you love the players who give nice, clear hand signals.
Dealing can be dangerous
Players who lose money can be dangerous, profane and threatening. Occasionally, someone says they’ll be outside when you leave. Some casinos in Vegas have dealers leave in groups through a back door into a bus with tinted windows for a trip to some parking half a mile away from the casino. We have a player who plays calmly until he busts, then hits the table so hard, he has broken his hand.
Lots of dealers get fired.
There’s a point system. When you start, you’re allowed a small number of points in your first 90 days. Go over, and you’re fired – no questions asked, no appeal, and really no animosity. They may like you, but if you get the points, you gotta go. Hint: Fail to show up for work one day, and you’ll get enough points to get fired.
Lots of dealers quit.
Experienced dealers carry a lot of information in their heads. Remember, there are no notes, phones, laptops or calculators at the tables. They have to keep it all in their heads. It has value – to your casino, and to others. During a break on my first day, my shadow told me that our casino was losing five dealers a week – more than the classes were pumping out. Were they quitting? Were they getting fired? Were other things happening? Yes to all, he said.
Floor supervisors are really nice.
I mentioned this in a previous post. It’s worth mentioning again. They’re awesome.
Floor supervisors want it done their way.
They’re awesome, but they were all trained in different places. To each supervisor, their way makes the most sense, and that’s how they want it done. As a dealer, this means every supervisor will stop by and briefly, gently tell you that just about everything you are doing is wrong, or is being done in the wrong order. They’re not doing it to be mean. They’re trying to show you a better, easier way to do it. You accept it. You thank them. You do it their way.
Your 20-minute break goes fast.
As a dealer, you really do get a 20-minute break every hour or every hour and twenty minutes – usually the latter. To get to the restroom or break room, you need to walk a good distance, then go down a couple of flights of stairs. The “back of house” is a maze to the new guy, and I got briefly lost once. If you hit the restroom, you may have five minutes to sit down before it’s time to go back up.
The pay may eventually be great.
Early in our class, we were told we’d make about $25 per hour as a dealer. One casino official mentioned $30. So you get breaks every hour and 20 minutes, a free meal in the employee dining room every shift, and $25 or $30 an hour. Sounds good. Sign me up.
But most casinos actually pay their dealers minimum wage – less if their state allows it. My casino pools and shares tokes, dividing the total for that day by the number of dealer hours. Tokes are collected by two trusted dealers, and counted in the counting room. The toke rates are posted on a bulletin board. At some other casinos, dealers keep their own tokes.
But when you’re new, not all of your hours will get a share of the tokes. Employee orientation doesn’t. On my first day dealing, I thought I was making a share. I wasn’t. On my second day, I thought I was making tokes. I wasn’t.
And the casino deducts some of the expense of hiring you from your pay. Our state charges $350 for a gaming license. The casino generously pays it up front, but takes back $70 per paycheck for 10 weeks (five paychecks). My first week’s “net pay” was $10.58. (That’s not a typo. That’s ten dollars and fifty-eight cents.)
Two weeks later, I collected two weeks of pay. I got tips for some of those days, but not all. My gross pay came out to $18.79 per hour, and net pay – after taxes, deductions and license – was a little over $13 per hour. If I make it 10 weeks, my state license will be paid off, and my net pay will go up to something around $20 per hour. I was hired part-time, so no benefits, even though you can work 40 hours a week or more. Eventually, they say, if you're over 40 hours too often, they'll have to give you benefits.
Some people never tip.
The dealers here know what I’m talking about. Some people will bet $5, get blackjack, and tip the dealer the $2.50 chip. Others won’t tip, even if they win big. I heard about a player in high limit who won over $30,000, colored up and walked away. No tip. For some, it’s an honest personal belief. For others, tipping is foreign to their culture. It is what it is, and I understand everyone is different. It’s appreciated, not expected.
It’s nice to get tokes, because it means your player is winning and happy. It’s also more interesting when the player “puts the dealer in the game” by betting the toke. If the player wins, your toke wins, too. As a dealer, I understand that if you are losing, you won’t be tipping. I’d rather see you play and win.
You are not the only dealers
The casino has professional poker dealers, separate from table games. In Las Vegas, they have “Party Pit” dealers – young women who deal while wearing lingerie. We have “dealer-tainers,” who wear tiny little dresses when they deal in certain areas. And they look very nice in their dealer uniform. We were touring the back of house and one of them walked by. When she turned a corner, I told the instructor, “OK, I am not wearing that to deal.”
He looked me up and down. “Agreed,” he said, dryly.
The casino loves VIP players
Like many casinos, we have a multi-level affinity program. There are cards – all different colors, and the top tier card. To get the top tier card at this casino, you need to drop $750,000. (Seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.)
But that may not all be from your own bank account. If a player buys in for $10,000, bets and wins, say, $30,000, then loses all of it, he or she will be recorded as losing $30,000 that day. Players who do this get pretty much anything they want. Free meals, hotel rooms, etc. One high roller player, talking to the dealers outside a class, said he can call Las Vegas and get a room on a busy holiday weekend. He said, “If I want a room, they’ll pull someone’s reservation for me.”
“For $750,000,” I thought, “they should pull someone out of the shower.”
Some people live at the casino
They’re not supposed to, but we’ve seen people sleep in the slot machine chairs, “staying overnight” inside the casino for a two days or more. The most I’ve heard of so far is four days.
The casino industry’s biggest winner is state government
The state where I work takes 55 percent of the casino’s slot machine “win” as a tax. The tax on the table games “win” is 18 percent. The state charges $350 for each gaming license, and has a gaming license “tax” of around $12 per paycheck on your pay after that. The casino serves alcohol, so there’s an LCB tax on your pay, too -- maybe $2 a paycheck. That one really gets me. (There’s a long and storied history of bootlegging in my family, and paying tax on alcohol I can’t even drink just seems unnatural.)
If you’re a history buff, you’ll know that my state’s current slot machine tax is a bit more than what Al Capone took from his illegal nickel slots back in prohibition days. (He gave half the money to the bar owners, after all.) The state simply coopted what the mob was doing by making it legal.
Conclusion
I’ve really enjoyed sharing what is to me a new world here on PCF. Now it’s time for me to step aside and be a spectator in this thread and read the stories of our other dealer members, past and present. If you’ve been a dealer or will be someday, you have my greatest respect. Dealers really are, as one writer described them, “carnival barkers who can do calculus in their heads.”
Thank you for reading, and for the great comments. Please continue the thread with your own stories of dealing, playing, and winning at the tables.
Last edited:
Great read, brings my back to my dealer training and dealing days (though I'm only 25 and that was only 3-4 years ago).
WedgeRock
Royal Flush
Truth.
I was sitting next to a friend who did a small fist bump (intentionally) when he drew to 22. The dealer paid him.
God knows... Its hooker juice.
I'd tip you just for having this attitude.
I always wondered if dealers preferred the straight toke, or if they preferred to risk it by being put in the game.
Last edited:
OP
OP
A dealer can actually get fired for making that mistake, depending on the payout. If security is actively watching that table, they can call down to the floor and get the dealer written up.
A local radio show (now a podcast) that I listen to was talking about dealing and playing blackjack in the Detroit casinos. The lead host said he once sat at a table where a pit boss allowed a player to call the African American dealer the "N" word, just because he was betting and losing big. The dealer just sat there and took it. I found this surprising and sad.
SwampYankee
Pair
WedgeRock
Royal Flush
OP
OP
Based on what I have personally seen, that story is probably true, and I know you are accurately relating it.
It's shocking, though. First, for the use of the word, which could open the casino up to some legal action from their employee, and for the sheer despicable nastiness of the customer. Some floor supervisors have a line, and if the customer crosses it, he's out. But for most, as nice as they are, there is no line for ejecting a player shy of physically attacking a dealer or another player.
Where I work, the women who deal can tell a customer to go to another table. I really can't. One supervisor told me that when I work with him and the players get abusive with their language, I should pull the shoe in to the center of the table and wait, then tell him when he comes over to see what's wrong. That would be an easy day, because I'd be dealing for about 10 minutes every hour.
None of this abuse should ever be allowed in a casino, of course. Particularly when they're selling you the visit based on the image of the casino as a form of happy Disney World with gambling.
All of the abusive language is illegal, of course. There are disorderly conduct laws in every state, and I know you can't go into a 7-Eleven and call the clerk an asshole or motherfu#$er repeatedly for eight hours without getting arrested.
If a player loses a big hand and says "Motherfu#$er" to the cards, I'm fine with that. I want him to win, so I might be thinking the same thing he is saying. But if he calls me that like it's my name all day long, it's tough not to react, to call him "sir," and to keep playing the game.
I've seen many dealers at the table games (Mainly 3 card and 4 card poker) mis-read hands and payouts to the players benefit. I never said anything, as I know the players would be irate. What is the proper protocol?
(after one of the dealers who had made 3 mistakes moved on, I did pull the pit boss over discretely and mention the dealer had made several mistakes)
Mark
(after one of the dealers who had made 3 mistakes moved on, I did pull the pit boss over discretely and mention the dealer had made several mistakes)
Mark
detroitdad
Royal Flush
In my job I've routinely had incidents where customers would call me everything under the sun. It used to bother me when I was young. Now I rarely even notice it. Of course in my current position it happens a lot less often (definitely not all day, every day like you seem to be experiencing).
Keep up the posts Dennis. This has become one of my favorite threads.
B
OP
OP
I think you are about right on this. They'll review the dealer's mistakes to see if there's a pattern, or if they were just random screw-ups by a new dealer or a dealer on his first day dealing that game. If he kept overpaying the same player, it will get stickier, and they'll open an investigation.
But I think it's OK to say something if you see a mistake. I can see being quiet about other people's cards, but you should always say something if the dealer makes a mistake on your cards. If the dealer has a few points and completely misses the mistake, you could be saving his job. If you speak up, he'll call the floor to fix the error and not get deeper into a mess. It's easy to fix, and the dealer will try to keep from doing it again.
Believe it or not, people will tell you if you've overpaid them or miscounted their hand as a winner when it lost. Some people believe this honesty will bring good karma on future hands.
I've done that before, but there was no Karma returned. I love to play these games, but hate them at the same time. I can never win. (actually, I have won money twice)
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
I was fortunate that I always called my dad "dad". Never "sir". My teachers were Mr. (or Mrs), never "sir". I first heard "sir" in movies, and thought it was a deferral of rank.
It wansnt until one day I was in the car with my dad and he was pulled over by a police officer. My dad was initially upset. He was driving with his kids in the car and wasn't doing anything wrong that I could see (though I was just a kid). His demeanor instantly changed as the officer approached the window. He then became very polite and called the officer "sir". He ended every statement with "sir", like an old-timey radio operator saying "over" to conclude their statement. The officer came back after checking the licence, and let my dad off with a warning. My dad replied "thank you, officer."
After the officer left, I had to ask why he didn't say sir.
"Sir means asshole. When he didn't give me a ticket, he was no longer an asshole".
Today, I work in an occupation where I deal with the public and internally with officers of various ranks, all of them above me. I try to speak to the public by learning their names and I refer to my officers by their name when unofficial, and when official by their rank - "Captain", "Lieutenant" or "Chief". Well, most of them... I refer to one of them by "sir" all the time, but he's a real "sir".
Does anyone know why this is the case? Most casinos I've played in the poker dealers keep their tips, where the BJ dealers share. Is there a rhyme or reason to this? Is one better than the other?
Also for tipping to the dealers (past and present) would you rather just drop the chip, or have it played? I like to tip when I play, when I play craps, I always have $1 on the pass line for them, and back it with $1-$3 odds. Also they ride with me on the hardways. Should I just give it to them instead?
I know at the Casinos I play at, poker dealers usually get tipped every hand, whereas the table games players only tip when then win (and not just the min, but a sizable win). I always tip by putting a $1 chip to the side of one of my bets. I know they appreciate the try, and love it when it hits. While I am not that lucky, I did once get the dealer a $26 tip once. that was one of the few times I have finished up.
Mark
Mark
Mac128k
Flush
I used to bounce in a club and have been called every name in the book. I quickly developed a thick skin for it and so did my crew. For some reason it helped that we were in total control of when enough was enough. I'd take a lot of abuse knowing that as soon as that person crossed my line, they were out on their ass.
It's hard to explain but I could always feel the difference between a drunk venting and when it got serious. Every night I'd also be called by your nickname and it didn't bother me but insult one our servers that way and you were gone. Funny how it works. I haven't thought about it in years. Great thread!
It's hard to explain but I could always feel the difference between a drunk venting and when it got serious. Every night I'd also be called by your nickname and it didn't bother me but insult one our servers that way and you were gone. Funny how it works. I haven't thought about it in years. Great thread!
OP
OP
I don't really have any strong feelings either way about playing the toke or just giving it to the dealer when the hand is over. If you lose, it gets put in the rack for the casino, so we're really in it together. The way I see it, you are still trying to tip, so you're the greatest.
Wow! $4.50 an an hour and $12.50 tokes in 1991? That means the pay hasn't really increased much in 26 years!
Create an account or login to comment
You must be a member in order to leave a comment
Create account
Create an account and join our community. It's easy!
Log in
Already have an account? Log in here.
