This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Interactive FUTURE OF CASINO DEALING


The dealer’s point of view


Paul Sculpher spoke recently with David, a dealer for one of the major live dealer operations, who provide real dealers for major UK (and international) online brands. It’s a massively growing area, with the presence of a real smiling (usually) face mixed with the anonymity of playing online having become a huge draw for the operators.


Paul Sculpher, Being something of a casino geek, and having been a self-employed casino consultant for the last six years (at www.paulsculpher.com) I can’t help myself dropping into casinos wherever I go in the world. Eventually, I partnered up with a couple of other guys to put together www.ukcasinochecker.com, a website reviewing every casino in the UK. It started as a bit of fun, although we do have ambitions for it to become the authority site for people looking for information about casinos to visit in the UK.


Our job is to welcome players and interact as much as


possible, while spinning the ball or dealing cards. There’s no working out of bets, pushing chips or any real opportunity to


develop our skills, so I found ‘real’ dealing more rewarding


there are not many opportunities for the local girls coming in new to the industry to get ahead.


And is there a lot of turnover of staff ?


David was a dealer in UK casinos for several years before taking up the opportunity to travel and work in the studio environment.


David, can you tell us a bit about the difference between dealing in UK casinos and working in an online live casino studio?


Well, it’s a whole lot more boring! Essentially our job is to sit there, welcome players and interact as much as possible, while spinning the ball or deal- ing out cards. There’s no working out of bets, pushing chips around or any real opportunity to develop our skills, so I found “real” dealing a lot more rewarding. The money is good, mind …


With money obviously in mind, how well rewarded is the job ?


It’s different for native English speakers than it is for the local staff. We get paid more than the non- native speakers get – generally local girls – and an easier work schedule too. The local team get a liveable wage, but I am lucky enough to be able to have a nice lifestyle while saving for the future – which is ideal as I don’t want to be doing this for too long. [Editor's note: It is common across the live casino sector for native speaking dealers, who typically have several years of land-based casino


experience, to command higher pay than non- native speakers or those entering the casino sec- tor.]


And what’s involved in terms of training, for your current job and your old job ?


Training for a real casino is far more complex. My training school was six weeks, at the end of which I was very much a trainee dealer, with everything slow and uncertain – it’s only after six months or more you start to gain experience and smooth things out. The training programme for the studio job is about a week of absolute basics – how to spin the ball, how to deal with customers and operate the hardware and so on. For an experi- enced dealer – spinning the ball wasn’t anything new – it took a day or so to get comfortable with everything.


And how about progression – is there a similar career path in both sectors?


Not really – although the studio based industry is still evolving really. If you spend long enough as a dealer in a regular casino and have the ability, you’ll work your way from dealer up to the more senior positions. In my current studio role, the Pit Bosses all have some real casino experience, so


Absolutely yes. With the native English speakers, the deal is pretty good so we tend to stick around, but the job isn’t quite so comfortable for the local girls. There’s also the issue of how they’re treated by the customers. They have to wear fairly revealing uniforms, and as you can imagine – as in all gambling environments – some of the cus- tomers aren’t the best behaved. I’ve seen some horrible comments pop up on the screen, and of course the worst type of people feel safe behind their keyboard and feel they can say anything without any comeback.


You have identical twins apply for the same post with identical CVs aside from one thing - one has an online background in dealing and the other has land-based - do you instinctively think they would be different in their skills and abilities and who would you most likely employ?


David: I’d go with the land-based candidate in an instant. Technically they will have developed more skills, but crucially being a land based deal- er teaches you a lot about how to deal with diffi- cult people. Not every land based dealer develops those skills fully – some become a little with- drawn and end up not communicating at all – but many become experts in communicating with people in a bad mood, and it’s a skill that would be useful in a lot of careers. Someone with a year or two as an online dealer has only really shown a high boredom threshold – oh, and in my case the ability to handle working with several hundred beautiful young women.


1 0 1


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108