WTF is it with the large number of stickpeople at work that refuse to do the basic job function of figuring out their prop bets…
Last night, stick just refused to subtract losers from payoffs.. (no, not Joe Cat) would take one guess at a “tough” bet then say “ok pay him”.. or just skip them all together.. and would get disgusted when offered a simple key to figure out the bet themselves with a walkthrough of the bet in question and indignantly still refuse to come up with the final answer.
It’s not just that one.. there a lot of sticks that take one stab at it or mumble and wait till the box or the base tell em. Nobody is going to get better, nobody is going to learn how to do their damn job if somebody else always gives them the answer. They don’t practice prop payoffs to get better or heck, to learn them in the first place! 
Did the part about being on stick meaning it’s THEIR responsibility to do and know that stuff get skipped in class? Or is the state of our crap pit so low that not caring how you do your job just becoming the norm?
Nobody does anything about it.. nobody else cares.. the supervisors don’t hold anyone to any kind of standards (I’ve benefitted from that too because let’s face it, dealing procedure all the time sucks) but the line has to be drawn somewhere between letting a real dealer just deal and making somebody that refuses to learn to deal to do their job.
FLIPPIN’ LEARN TO DEAL IF YOU ARE GONNA BE ON THE GAME.
or at least be willing.
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June 11th, 2007 at 4:56 am
I may suck at a lot of the prop bets but rest assured, I try! If I’m being ‘lazy’ on the game feel free to yell at me.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Probably 90% of all good dealers got yelled at I’d bet. There are a bunch that didn’t that strived to be good at dealing the game but the vast majority got called ugly names! That’s not gonna happen much anymore, at least not in the midwest.
“He can’t talk to me like that! OMG I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life. I’m going to have H.R. remove this heinous beast from the department! I won’t stand for this” and that’s what happens.
V.S.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” said the shocked dealer.
“Oh yeah? Get this MF’ing POS off my GD crap game!” screamed the Vegas boxman. And that’s what happens.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I agree, The ewok king is not the greatest at prop bets but at least he tries. A few dealers have been singled out by supervisors as to not helping people on stick by figuring out the payouts themselves and setting them up. The problem is we don’t have enough dice dealers anymore. Back in the day you had to earn a spot on dice, you did not finish class then automatically get scheduled for it. The best dealers dealt, end of story, there was no having Top Gun deal Pai Gow because he already had 4 dice days. I could go on for hours about this subject. This huge focus on customer service has caused a loss in focus of the technical aspects of the game. I find this ironic because I feel the #1 customer service objective on a dice game should be “Pay the F&*(ing bet correctly”!
June 11th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I couldn’t agree more with Frank. You can smile, do a song and dance for so long to cover up the fact that you suck. But when it comes down to the brass tacks, if you can’t make a simple payout correctly, people will know you suck. Which leads me to the box. I can start rattling off names of people who sit, who shouldn’t be there. They have no gumption, to scared to make a call one way or another, let alone, stand up for dealer who was right, know was right, but afraid of pissing a guest off. Or boxes who are cheerleaders despite the fact you have people betting the don’ts. I remember the good ole days of Station, the boxes got on my case, called me out, even got kicked once in awhile. Now, Linda L says they want those who suck to keep dealing the games, despite the fact they can’t learn, won’t learn and have no desire to do better. I’m just keeping my head down, dealing my game.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Well, I give you guys permission to get mean with me. I’ve been lucky with everyone (dealers) being pretty pleasant with me, which is awesome, but I think I’m at the point where I wont get any better without a good kick in the butt every now and again. I promise I wont take anyone to HR!
In the end, I know it would help.
June 12th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Yes you are right Frank, but don’t blame the guest service push as the sole reason for the decline in our dice pit’s standards. Any one of us, or more correctly you now that I may never deal again, can deliver good guest service while maintaining a fast ACCURATE game. The real problem lies in pride in the game now. When I broke in, albeit only five years ago, everyone in our class took pride in being a dice dealer and worked non-stop outside of work and any chance we had at work to improve our game knowledge and awareness. I went out to another casino and bought two stacks of chips to get my hands to work properly. The problem is not with the teachers of the classes. Not one of you can argue that Justin or Linda do not know what is going on or the best way to help a dealer improve their skills as each has been doing so from the box position for years. The problem lies in two areas. First is the lack of commitment to or respect for the game. Secondly the problem is on us. I will not sit here and preach that nobody has been offering help to the lesser skilled dealers, because that is not true. However, if we take such pride in the game and have such high expectations of our peers, we should take that extra step and approach these “dealers” and offer any help we can give. Scott, Frank, Jay, you guys are a wealth of knowledge to the upcoming dealers. Take pride in our pit and offer the hows and whys even if the lumps don’t want to ask the questions anymore. To not take pride in your trade is terrible, but is it any better to become apathetic to the situation ?
Having said all this, I don’t want to be called a hypocrite, so I will officially announce that I have put together a prop quiz that will soon be mandatory for ALL boxmen and dealers to pass to a certain percentage. I just ran the test by Zach, Diana, Vic (I know he doesn’t know the game, but he gets stuff done), and Linda. Linda asked me to make a few additions to the quiz as far as toke bets. After I put in the new bets, append the formulas in Excel, and finalize the test, I will be submitting it to Leigh and Joe to become an official training course to see which dealers/boxmen need to brush up on (or finally learn) the correct keys and payouts to EVERY prop bet, or combination of prop bets available. I will be personally taking time to re-teach the persons that that cannot pass the test until the time they either can pass the test or will not be allowed on a dice game. The only stall is that in order for management to make this mandatory with said repercussions, Leigh and Joe have to sign off on it as an official training course. I have been told that there won’t be a problem getting them to do so, but we’ll see. I figure this is still a few weeks away, but in the meantime, use your skills to help the others. I know that there are a couple that don’t care if they get better, but the others just need pushed in the right direction.
I’ll leave now, having written too much, with a quote from one of those who were responsible for breaking me in.
Dealer to Glenn Palmer “the pencil said to come see you”
Palmer “No, go back and have him send me a real CRAPS DEALER”
June 12th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Hey, I try to help whenever I can. Kinda hard to help people when I’m stuck in crapless hell all the time. Jessica comes to me quite a bit for questions. That’s one reason why I like you Jessica…you ARE interested in learning and getting good. But, you can’t be scared of coming on to a jam up game. That’s what tests how good you are. Can you still be accurate, neat and fast while dealing a game like crapless on Sunday night. You’re getting good Jess, keep up the hard work and keep improving, you’ll be fine.
Jason, it’ll be interesting to see how many box people crash and burn taking that quiz. Let alone, the 12 hour shifts the dice dealers will be doing cause no one knows the game.
June 13th, 2007 at 8:44 am
That’s great, Jason. It’s been talked about in the past that something like this needed to be done. Not just the test, but a teacher to go over the things that the box and dealers didn’t know. Show them the how and why of whatever it is they didn’t know and only THEN let them back into the pit once they understand and can pass the test.
That requires a good bit of effort by somebody and I’m glad to see something like this finally be implemented (hopefully)
Thanks for stepping up.
As to the teachers of the classes, I really do have every confidence in Justin and Linda’s abilities. They are both great teachers I would imagine (not having seen them instruct a whole class). I’m sure they informed all the students that their role on stick was to present the dice to the shooter, constantly watch the dice at all times, call the dice etc. etc. watch all payoffs on their end and then collect losing prop bets and pay all winning props etc.
They taught them the keys and told them their job.. that they will have to know this stuff cold and need to practice in their off time (just suggesting it i’m pretty sure it was taken as by the students). Told them what was expected of them as best they could given the time and managment constraints on them but it probably didn’t occur to them at the time of having to instruct all these people that they might need to impress upon them that they can’t stand there for months and let somebody else do that for them…
NOBODY ELSE HAS EITHER… and whenever I have, I’ve been chided and admonished for being uncooperative and derisive… that’s my rant…
June 13th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Jay, I’m more worried about the percentage of boxes that will not pass initially than that of the dealers. I should note though, that when I submit this plan to Leigh and Joe, it is not my intention to directly pull anyone out of the pit. I will only suggest that a person/persons should be removed after I have given them the “refresher” and they can still not pass the test or simply do not care. I do not want an extreme lack of bodies in the pit even more than I don’t want the lumps there. If we immediately remove everyone that cannot pass the test the first time, then you would be working a bunch of overtime and that would only demoralize the good dealers more.
Scott, I actually picked up the idea a couple of months ago, but needed to really observe what bets or area of bets are causing the most problems. I have also been trying to see which dealers are struggling as opposed by those who just don’t care. The dealers that don’t care to get any better or to learn the keys I feel will have to be removed for good. The dealers who have dealt for 10 years and cant pay a $10 hop bet on the 6, 7, or 8 have no business back there.
I have had several conversations with the dealers out of the last two classes that have continued to struggle, and have worked with them to improve. One of them told me “we were told that we wouldn’t get good for about a year, and it’s only been 6 months” I told this individual that just because it may take up to a year to get GOOD, it should not look like you just came out of class last week. I don’t know of your exact situation Scott, but there is no way anyone should have a problem with you telling a lump that they should have shown improvement by now, unless it was on a game in front of everyone. Only then can I see you catching some flack over it.
At any rate I have let a few dealers get a look at it just to get some feedback, namely Joe Savaglia and Bob Lavery. Frank, you got to see some of the questions about a month ago, but there have been some revisions. There will be no tricky BS on there like the now infamous $77.50 horn, but as it sits now 16 questions of everyday bets and combination bets that every dealer should be able to pay, and 4 dealer bets. If anyone has suggestions as to anything you think should be on the test, feel free to comment, as I have not submitted the final draft to Leigh and I value your feedback.