A croupier, or a dealer in American tradition, is a casino employee who is responsible for running various gambling activities, it doesn’t matter if it is poker, roulette, baccarat or some other table game. There are no dealers when it comes to slots, for obvious reasons. Croupier is a French word as casino origins come from France. This job may look simple to some, but, once you start to get into details, it becomes obvious that it is truly hard and responsible work, requiring advanced personal and professional skills.
What a croupier is responsible for?
There’s a whole range of what a dealer must do at his or her workplace. Let’s start:
- Shuffling and dealing cards.
- Dealing tokens.
- Explaining rules and terms to casino clients.
- Accepting bets.
- Spinning the roulette wheel.
- Taking control over the gaming process and the rule compliance.
- Settling down customer conflicts in a polite way.
- Announcing the winning and losing bets.
- Counting and handing out winnings in tokens.
- Comforting clients at the table.
Dealer’s basic skills
To become a dealer, a person must have the following skills:
- High-level communication skills.
- Ability to conduct quick math calculations in mind.
- Great memory.
- Fine hand motor skills.
- Stress resistance and emotion control.
- Punctuality.
How much does a croupier earn?
Dealers, as a rule, do not have a fixed monthly salary, its level depends on the number of shifts, with each one lasting for 12 hours. American dealers on the average earn from $80 to $150 per shift. However, the dealer’s income mostly depends on lucky clients’ tips; this is an important casino tradition. Tips are usually given in the shape of tokens that could later be cashed out by the dealer. It could give a boost of $500 to $1200 and even more monthly.
Curious facts about croupiers:
- Gender ratio has been pretty unequal for decades, around 30/70 favoring women. Recently, this imbalance has almost vanished, being now close to 50/50.
- You need to have a croupier’s license to get this job in the US, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.
- In Las Vegas and other US casino locations, as well as in the most land-based casinos around the world, dealer’s position is very specialized based on a given game, with blackjack, baccarat, roulette, craps, and poker specialists.
- When choosing a candidate, he or she could be asked to take two stacks of chips from the table into their hands, 20 pieces each. This is how finger length is tested.
- Dealers are forbidden to wear jewelry. The only exception is a wedding ring.
- When moving to another table, the dealer shows the inspector his or her hands to make sure that not a single item had been taken from the table.
- Croupiers are in general more superstitious than players.