Why live casino dealers root for the players, not the casino.
If you’ve ever played a live dealer table game in a bricks-and-mortar casino, you know what it’s like to face off with a professional dealer. Whether it’s blackjack, casino hold’em, or pai gow poker, it always seems like they’re out to get you. The truth is, they’re not. In fact, the dealer is on your side. They can’t cheat and give you the win, of course, but deep down inside, they’re rooting for you.
“That’s preposterous,” you say? Sure, it’s true that every player is competing directly with the dealer. But what is the dealer’s incentive to win? Casinos don’t put a bonus in the dealer’s paycheck for having a good run. In fact, a dealer who wins too much makes less money overall.
Casino dealers don’t make a fantastic salary to begin with. Much like the cocktail waitress roaming the casino floor, serving alcoholic beverages to indulgent guests, they rely heavily on tips to make a respectable living. A gambler who’s just lost everything isn’t going to give a very nice tip, now is he? He may not even tip at all. But a lucky blackjack player who cleans up well? That’s the guy who’s going to pass his dealer an appreciative tip for his service.
Long story short, the dealer is your friend. He or she may not show it, but they are always rooting for their players to beat the house. Unless you’re an obnoxious jerk, of course. Pro tip – don’t be an obnoxious jerk 🙂
Three More Secrets About Live Casino Dealers
Here’s some other interesting facts about casino dealers and croupiers that you may not realize. Note that all of these tidbits came directly from actual dealers from major casinos all across North America.
The Real Pros Work the Night Shift
Did you ever feel like your bankroll dwindles faster at night than it does in the afternoon? You’re not crazy. There’s a very good reason for it.
Casinos hire and train a lot of dealers to run their tables. In the mainstream industrial business world, employees with seniority work the day shift, while the new guys are thrown onto nights. The opposite is true of casinos.
During the day, casinos are serving their run of the mill day-gamblers, utilizing their newest (but still professionally trained) dealers. At night, the crowds grow larger, the alcohol flows more freely. This is when the fastest, most experienced dealers take to the tables. The reason should be pretty obvious. The faster the games move, the more money the casino stands to make, especially from their sobriety-deprived high rollers.
The Dealers Don’t Shuffle Cards Anymore
Did you ever wonder why you never see a dealer shuffling cards anymore? They don’t have to. You see, casinos don’t receive decks of cards the way we buy them at home. They come in a large box, pre-shuffled and ready to be dealt from a shoe. Once that shoe reaches its obligatory depth (approximately 45-50% in blackjack, to prevent card counting), that shoe is removed and another stack of pre-shuffled decks is brought in. Every single day, dealers work with brand new boxes of these pre-shuffled cards.
You Can’t Read Tells from a Blackjack Dealer
If you’ve been staring down your live casino dealers in hopes of picking up on a tell when they peek for blackjack, stop wasting your time. The truth is (at least in larger casinos), they have no idea what their second card is, even after they peek.
Blackjack tables are equipped with a special peeker box that allows the dealer to see if they have blackjack. The peeker only reveals the very corner edge of the card – not the number on it. So yes, they will know if they have blackjack or not, just as you will. But they won’t know the full value of their hand otherwise. If they don’t know, they can’t tell.
