Interactive FUTURE OF CASINO DEALING
Making the right deal happen
Looking at dealing in both online and land-based needs the perspective of a casino operator with a foot in both camps. G3 interviewed Kevin Grahame, Table Gaming Director, Grosvenor Casinos, to discuss the difference and similarities between the live online and retail dealing.
Why does live table gaming continue to attract players both in Grosvenor clubs and in your online site?
The reason that live gaming is such a powerful model, both online and in retail, is that it gives trust. You see the dealer spin the ball and deal the cards; you see the result from start to finish. The difference between retail and online is that you remove the technical side of dealing from the online experience. We build trust in retail by deal- ing fairly and by paying the right amount. Additionally, there’s also the fact that an online dealer can’t make eye contact with the customer. A lot of personality comes through that personal face-to-face meeting.
I think that the connection with the player is a key component of the retail live gaming experi- ence, which is underpinned by technical compe- tence. The hurdle that you must overcome with online live dealing is the delivery of good cus- tomer service to people that don’t respond. Talking to our team, who have experience of play- ers within retail - the online dealer doesn’t have the visual cues to help them communicate with
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the player - the visual cues of body language have been removed. I think the online dealing team do a fantastic job and provide great service on a per- sonal level despite this lack of customer feed- back.
Are there still career opportunities for dealers in your retail locations to progress up a structured route to managerial level?
Our teams look to the future as they have always done. If they think there isn’t a path to progress in this business then you limit your ability to retain the best people. There are now multiple ways of becoming a dealer, though everyone must pass through our training programme. We have a mix- ture of training schools, training dealers ourselves and using trusted partners too. We also supply an overspill for external schools when they’re really busy. We’re happy to help as we get the chance to see people up close within our training environ- ment.
I’d also highlight the fact that our turnover of employees at the retail dealer level hasn’t changed over the last few years. Where we have
Lots of solutions remove the chip counting functions from the retail game, but there’s
resistance because our dealers are actually very good at the technical side
seen structural change is in the management landscape, though in-club the vast majority of senior managers are still part of the traditional route from the gaming floor to management (a route from dealer to inspector, shift manager and GM). We have a relatively small number of GMs that haven’t travelled this route, though that’s not to say that we don’t actively encourage the appointment of managers from outside the gam- ing industry; it’s just that the traditional route has proved very positive in terms of both the gaming and business knowledge gained on that journey.
A few years ago we changed our management
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