Crap dealers: How to save your jobs and become the best-tipped employees in the casino

Commercial Casinos

Dennis Conrad

I never imagined I’d say this, but I now believe that live craps is in serious danger of becoming obsolete. Crap dealers, I’m sorry.

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Before you accuse me of not knowing what I’m talking about, let me explain. I know craps. I dealt and supervised the game for eight years. I’ve played regularly for almost 50 years. And I’ve consulted with numerous table-game operators over the years who were flummoxed about what to do about craps, even whether they should have it or not.

I haven’t looked at any statewide or national revenue trends for craps over the last decade, but my strong suspicion is that it continues a slow and steady decline. Many places where I’ve played over the years no longer have the game or only on limited days for limited hours.

I concur with many of my casino-operator friends on the varied reasons for the continuing demise of craps. Older players are dying off. The game has always been complicated to learn and challenging to deal. Quality experienced crap dealers (or dealers in general, for that matter) are hard to find. Craps is too labor intensive. Slots continue to eat away at table-game floor space. I believe that all of those reasons, and several other contributing factors to the demise of craps, are true.

But the main culprit is the meteoric rise of electronic table games in casinos around the world. Some of these ETGs offer blackjack or roulette as well. Some are an option of “stadium games” with a live dealer at a raised podium or on a crap table with a backlit layout and much electronic gadgetry. Some electronic crap stations can accommodate multiple players, while others (my favorites!) are for single players who can control their own game and play as fast or slow as they want. Electronic crap games are growing like wildfire. I wish I’d invested in Interblock stock some years ago.

Which brings us back to crap dealers — who should be very worried that their job descriptions might become obsolete. Electronic craps plays faster, payoffs are 100% accurate, you can play for lower minimum bets, no players jerk around with the dice and slow up the game, and no dealers scold you for late bets, hands over the table, cell phones, short rolls, where to set your money, and various other player-protocol faux pas.

I’m not suggesting (yet) that crap dealers should burnish up their resumes because of the onslaught of ETGs. In fact, the march of technology often creates opportunities in people-based businesses. Think how some companies in the call-center world tout “talking to a real person” over the often-maddening services that are fully automated. Or how some people prefer dealing with living breathing tellers at banks instead of the cold, faceless, intimidating ATMs. Likewise, many table-game players will likely always prefer a live dealer to a software program.

That is if we don’t tick them off and squeeze out the value of the live-table-game experience!

So, crap dealers, while my message may sound distressing to you, I’m very hopeful that IF you follow the formula I’m about to share, you’ll not only secure the future of your crap- dealing jobs, but you’ll also have the most fun and best tipped job in the joint (okay, except maybe for some cocktail servers …).

So, get cracking on the following.

Create a more welcoming environment – The days of standing around, waiting for crap players to show up, are over. Wandering players need to be invited into the game. They need to be welcomed, asked their name, and told the names of their dealers. They need to be introduced to the other players at the table. They need to be congratulated on big wins and commiserated with on stinging losses. They need to be chatted up (unless they don’t want to be) and made to feel a personal connection to the game. In short, the crap players’ experience needs to be relationship based instead of transaction based.
Remove the intimidation – Craps is complicated. Crap dealers need to cut through the complexities and simplify the game. They need to become master teachers of the game, rather than just handing out a meaningless gaming guide or when asked how to play the game, respond with short, curt, confusing things like, “Seven you win, seven you lose, depending on where you bet.” They need to be focused entirely on the players, instead of the other dealers and supervisors (and some cocktail servers …). I can’t tell you how many crap games I’ve entered where the dealers were all cross-firing with one another and I was at best an afterthought and at worst, an imposition on their closed social circle.
Enforce the rules with grace and understanding – Yes, craps has numerous rules to enforce and most make sense. Don’t bet while the dice are rolling. Bounce the dice off the end of the table. Don’t hold drinks over the (enclosed) table. Don’t take too long to shoot. Don’t try to hand dealers your bets; set the chips on the layout and tell them what they’re for. There are as many rules in craps as there are bets. And players will, most often not maliciously, break them. But they don’t have to be scolded, threatened, or embarrassed in communicating these rules. Crap supervisors, I’m looking at you!
Deal to a player’s action – Almost every crap player has a pattern. Some are don’t pass bettors. Some exclusively play the proposition (sucker) bets in the middle. Some are pass/come bettors. Some are place bettors. A crackerjack crap dealer assists the player in how he or she likes to play and doesn’t just slap down the payoffs and let the player fumble with what to do with them.
Make it fun – Craps has a rich history of fun calls of the dice. A hard eight (4-4) is the “square pair.” Two aces can be called “bird nuts.” A stickman can ask a shooter trying to shoot a nine, “What killed Jesse James” (a 45!). Crap dealers can root for the players. A player can be asked if they want to shoot the dice with “Shoot the dice, Mr. Rice? Or “Shoot the bones, Mrs. Jones?” Dozens of things can be done to markedly add to the fun quotient of the game.
Create more value– Craps already has plenty of bets with healthy house advantages (some would call them egregious). So a crap game can have a roll of 12 pay triple on the field bet. It can pay 15-1 on a roll of 11 instead of 14-1. It can have lower minimum bets when the game is slow or even all the time. It can charge a commission on a buy bet for the 4 and 10 after the number rolls, instead of while making the bet. There can be bonuses for long rolls (check out the crap game at the Atlantis in Reno!). And craps has the unique marketing advantage of having the one bet in the casino with no house advantage (the free-odds bet) that can be promoted, liberalized, and leveraged to drive more play.

So there you have it, crap dealers. You can be nothing more than dice pushers or you can truly become memory makers at your table. You can pick up your toke envelope every day or every week and complain how bad your tips are or you can be the best tipped employees in the casino.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Joyce Serrian, vice president of casino operations at Valley Forge Casino in Pennsylvania, about her experiment with an “elite craps” crew. She proved that if you take your best dealers, focus solely on your players, make the game more fun, and throw in some recognition for your superstars, your game and your dealers make a hell of a lot more money. And the players are over the moon.