Interactive FUTURE OF CASINO DEALING
OLGA: I agree, but equally both could present challenges, maybe more so than newcomers without any experience. It is sometimes difficult to break habits developed over a long period of time. Every casino has its own rules and proce- dures. The more experienced you are, the harder it will be to re-train. In stress situations the brain reacts by asking: ‘which is the safest route?’ and safe often means something already known.
HELEN: I agree with both Andres and Olga. One should not have pre-conceived ideas about any candidate – we assess the individual and their personality and make a judgement about how they will fit into our casino environment.
PLAYERS’ PERSEPECTIVE
Have the expectations of the player changed due to their engagement in online live environments?
ANDRES: There is a different demographic now with regards to players – there are different peo- ple playing online and at land-based venues, although of course there is overlap. The expecta- tions of the players are always high and increase with their level of gaming experience. Expectations tend to increase with VIP also; they demand the highest levels of service.
OLGA: I cannot comment about land-based casi- nos as my experience is primarily online. In my experience, dealing at the online Live Casino tables is not always ideal for ‘creative people’ or ‘art lovers’. They can find the job boring, whereas those turned on by being part of a high-tech mod- ern organisation seem to thrive.
HELEN: Frequently, you have a younger demo- graphic of players online, who perhaps have only ever played online and never in a land-based venue. Then you will have players that have played in both land-based and online. The key thing is for the dealers to be able to make the games fun, exciting and easy to follow for all play- er types. In terms of VIP online tables, I think it is useful for the dealer to have gained land-based experience and served this category of player. But in all cases they need to be a natural communica- tor and have a strong desire to deliver great cus- tomer service.
What’s the weighting of technical versus personal skills for today’s dealer - and is it the same for land-based as it is online?
ANDRES: In both the online and land-based sec- tors, personality counts for a lot. Some basic tech- nical ability – or at least an aptitude for working with systems – is also required in online, but spe- cialist user skills are taught in our Academy.
HELEN: In land-based you have to be able to cal- culate quickly to ensure correct payouts to play- ers, otherwise there will be issues on your table!
“Evolution has set the bar very high in terms of the standards players have come to expect from online Live Casino.
Frequently there is a younger demographic playing online –
the so-called ‘digital generation’ – and their expectation is always high.”
That headache is removed online as the system takes care of calculations and payouts. Of course, the dealer may still be challenged via chat but in principle the system deals with all payout details. In general, the online dealer needs to be able to multitask in the more technical online studio environment – but personal and customer service skills are crucial for both the land-based and online dealers.
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?
ANDRES: I would not pre-judge. If both are right for the role then employ both, without question.
HELEN: Evolution has set the bar very high in terms of the standards players have come to expect from online Live Casino. Frequently there is a younger demographic playing online – the so- called ‘digital generation’ – and their expectation of any screen-based playing or interactive expe- rience is always high.
Communicating with the player – how different is the connection with the player when dealing online as opposed to land-based? If you were lis- tening to two games being dealt with only the sound to guide you, could you tell which was online and which land-based?
ANDRES:At a land based table it is much easier to ‘read’ the player and engage them accordingly; you know immediately when to be quiet or when things are not going so smoothly. When dealing online it’s often very hard to gauge the player’s state of mind from the chat box. Having said that, with a good dealer at the table in each setting I think it would be quite difficult to tell the differ- ence from the sound alone.
OLGA: I believe I would hear the difference. Online chat provides interaction, but it is different because you cannot sense emotions. Each sen- tence a player types goes through a process I call the ‘information perception of each dealer’. We can all react differently to the same sentence when all we are seeing is words. The situation would be different in land-based casinos because the dealer can evaluate emotions more easily because he or she can see the players and judge their mood more easily from their eyes, their face and their body language.
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