Talk Is Cheap

I don’t worry so much about the hands as I do the listening. Hands, either you have them or you don’t. I’ve known several very good dice dealers that had bad hands. Listening to the box, and other good dealers will help you progress faster than everything else will. Even if you take just two minutes on your way to break to watch a few of the top dealers (and you know who they are by now), you can pick up on the little things that make the game smooth and fast. STUDY YOUR PROPS!!! We live in prop bet central and all the strokes come to play. Now I’m not one to say you should give 100% of you attention to the strokes, but while you can’t pay the string of hop bets then subtract out the horn bets, King George on the other end is losing his patience trying to get a roll. Study your props on your own time, work with your hands on our own time, ask another dealer or box to give you a pop quiz. These things will help keep you on your toes, but good game awareness is what makes a top notch dice dealer. Watch a good box or dealer for a few minutes and you will be able to pick up a few things to work on the next hour on the game. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask questions. One of the worst dice dealers to ever come out of class always asked questions and had the heart to stick with it and is now becoming a pretty damn decent dice dealer. There are a ton of things that we could throw out there to try to help you along, but you have to remember that learning dice is WORK. Take the time off the game to get good, then find an icon that you can emulate yourself after.

Both Frank and Jason are dead on. There’s only a couple of dealers out of the last class that I can already say they suck.. and that’s only because they absolutely refuse to learn anything or listen to anyone.

Dice class can’t really teach you how to handle and pay props. That’s something every break in dice dealer needs to PRACTICE paying props and learning the KEYS.. OFF THE GAME! At home.. in the car on the way to work.. on break.. peeking into Joe Cat’s notebook. (he’s got every key written down like three times each cuz he kept forgetting them).. the break ins that suck are the ones that stand on stick and have the audacity to think that they don’t have to figure them out and take afront at anyone that offers up help on how to get the answer instead of just giving them the answer. Those are the people that suck.

The break ins that suck are the ones that keep doing the things they are told not to do, and not doing the things that the other dealers suggest they do or the box tells them to do. The break ins that constantly don’t stand the heck up and keep their hands out of the layout when the dice are out, those are the people that suck.

All dealers make mistakes.. all break ins have a hard time and get confused.. that’s not what makes a lump. Lumps are the ones that after six months or a year still don’t know the basics like Frank said and don’t know how to pay prop bets and don’t watch a single thing being paid… ever.

Like you said, being on a game with a bunch of break ins might not give you the opportunity to learn new ways of doing things but it should get you very good at spotting mistakes… should because while on stick you are supposed to watch and mentally take and pay every single bet as the base dealer does. Now does that always happen 100% of the time.. no. Do I do it 100% of the time.. no. Somewhere out there, there’s a few dealers that do.. good luck finding them haha!

I guess that’s my biggest thing I could say that the vast majority of the dealers out of this last class are really bad at. Not many of you watch ANYTHING the base dealer pays. That’s what I’ve noticed most about this class. Those that do watch, it’s way to infrequent.

Most of the reason our dealers don’t get any better is because so many of our box people are weak and won’t stop them from doing things wrong.. like capping payouts in the come and whisking them off to the player instead of seperating the white and red for a moment so that the stick or box can get a chance to see if they are right or not. Others totally block the payout from the box with their hand on the layout after they cut out the red. Stuff like that really matters. As a fellow dealer, we can say “hey, I can’t read what you are paying, don’t hide it” or don’t just stack the $28 and hand it off. The box people should be demanding that they don’t.. (and screaming at them where I broke in at haha) and counselling, pulling people out of dice when they refuse to do what they are told by their boss.

Our box people that know better have been eviscerated in the office for “coming down too hard” on dealers for imposing proper procedure on them… too many experienced box people have been chastised by crybaby friggin dealers that can’t take their box telling them what to do and getting upset with them when the crybaby dealer doesn’t do what they are told.

The other problem is we have way too many box people that just plain don’t know any better and unfortunately we have some that just don’t care what happens on their game. It’s beyond ridiculous to have a supervisor sitting that doesn’t know what simple bets pay or have a flippin clue when something egregious is going on. That’s absurd to me.. but hey, I only have to deal =) and not worry about what happens. When it’s happening on my game though and I can get in trouble because of something that happens because of somebody elses incompetence and/or lack of anyting to protect the game, then I get concerned. This is a “cover your ass” job. Everything procedure you are “required” to follow, every move you are supposed to make, everything you are supposed to say and do is done for one reason.. to make sure that somebody else can see, read and know what you are doing.. another dealer, box, floor or eye in the sky. Everything is done to cover your ass so that nobody can say that something that didn’t happen, happened. When something is going on on my game that jeopardizes my ability to cover my own ass.. I’m gonna say something. I should clarify that. When something another dealer is doing, I’ll say something. Like “I can’t read your payoffs” or “don’t pick up that red with red in your hand” blah blah..

I won’t say that to the box or their supervisors though. I’m not gonna get into why I won’t.. I’ll just get in trouble =(

OMG this has turned into a book.

“Let me explain.. No, there is no time.. Let me sum up”

I don’t know who you are kixman, but I’m guessing you aren’t one of the two or so total lump dealers out of class =) since you obviously care about being a good craps dealer. That’s the thing.. apart from roulette, the rest of the games don’t really require much ardorous aptitude. Craps is a game that demands a lot and only those that relish that and have the drive and desire to be good at it become the “stars”.

Most of you are doing great, for the amount of time you have been dealing. Short of practicing prop keys and press moves at home, all the rest you will learn just comes from continued dealing. As you get more time there will be less and less thinking required about bets placed in the right spot, pay/take sequence etc etc.. and like Frank said.. DROP CUT! You can practice that at home too.. drop cut a bunch of single chips.. then a bunch of two chips.. three etc.. like you probably did at the start of every craps class. It’s a change from how you have paid on every other game, but it’s an important step in keeping your speed up.

I just know that I ignored the whole drop-cutting when I got out of class because, well, I simply couldnt drop cut. So I just picked everything. For some reason or another I finally started to drop cut a couple months ago and even though I still need a lot of work on it (my left hand sucks)…when I do drop cut, it helps tremendously! I now see why everyone was so adament about it. It only took a year for me to get that through my head. When I watch an experienced dealer pay and press bets and they look insanely smooth and clean…that’s why. (In my ‘lump’ opinion, that is).

All i can say is hang in there. Care about your job , have a passion for what you do and have a plan to move up. OMG Scott. What does egregious and ardorous mean? And how could i possibly make more money than somebody so smart to understand those big words? I dont know.

What? Me fail English? That’s unpossible!

Looking back almost three years to these comments and trying to figure out why I made up a word.. I do not have an answer as to what “ardorous” means.. I guess it seemed like a good way to make “ardor” an adverb. Doesn’t seem that way looking at it now though, you are right.

Even three years later “egregious” still means conspicuously bad, though. Not sure where you are going with that one.