blonde poker forum

Atfer taking 2 months off i returned to playing poker again during september where my first stop was the DTD monthly weekend where i made a satisfactory return to Cash games wheres my tourney play was a bit of throwing my money away! After that i have mostly spent most of my month playing live cash in the Vic card room. The Vic is where i learned to play poker an it has been nice seeing old faces from the past.With all the players coming in from around the world due to the wpt ,wsope an ept the games would be good so i made London my home for a month grinding away trying to recover Vegas losses.
So with all the talking about dealers recently i thought it appropiate that very rarely do we praise good things that happen in our sport! I have played alot of poker at Dtd an the Vic an overall the dealing standard is good with the occasional rookie being quite bad but i guess you have to start somewhere right? Now i didnt play any EPT events until the very last few days of the festival when i chose to play the plo8 on monday. So after playing a whole month in the Vic it was a fresh change an wow wow wow i was so impressed by the dealing standards, the dress sense, the ENGLISH being spoken by non british citzens , politeness of them,it was just so profesional an nothing i have ever expierenced before an this was a hard game to deal as well plo8.
We all know that in the uk that dealers dont get the best wage an the companys budget has set rates that they can pay but surely there must be a market for dealers getting trained like Thomas kremser crew as they apparently earn alot more than the standard club dealer in the uk ! Wouldnt the games run smoother , Tips would be higher, The clubs popularity would go up, wouldnt hear moaning stories about bad dealing an i mean the pros far outway the cons?
Anyone else play during the Ept an enjoyed the expierence ? Poker is massive in the UK at the moment producing so much talent on the playing side ! Isnt it time we start producing talent on the other side of the felt ?

It won't happen until ppl accept that they have to tip good dealers, instead of moaning "they get paid to do the job".

Plz learn to paragraph big charra

There is a massive difference between professional poker dealers and casino poker dealers. The professionals only deal poker, casino dealers deal the pit as well. In fact a lot of them don't even want to deal poker but it's part of their job discription. So unless you get 100% dedicated poker dealers in the casino's the standard will always be lower. Dedicated casino dealers, well it's not going to happen.

???

Its more common now than ever that casino's have dedicated poker dealers. 

Get TK to train him.

Other than the EPT, there aren't really many other avenues for poker dealers. It's notoriously hard to get on the team -- for my own part, I've tried to no avail.

TK dealers are the illest.

I didn't see a single misdeal during the main event.

FYP

fyp

Pete what you need to do is address this to every manager of every cardroom you walk into.

It would seem that Poker Dealer's wages in the UK are at an all-time low at the moment. The difference you notice between the standard of Dealers out of Austria as compared to the standard of Dealers in London or Nottingham or Birmingham or elsewhere is of course directly related to the amount of money they can expect to earn. In Vegas, Dealers keep their own tips, they generally get tipped well, and being a poker dealer is a career. In Austria and some other European countries, dealers are well-tipped and well renumerated, so unsurprisingly there is a large number of people who want to be poker dealers.

I have spoke to poker dealers in London who have seen the hourly rate driven down from £20+ per hour to £7 per hour. Plus tips. The tip point you will receive will vary massively from gig to gig and cardroom to cardroom.

In the UK the convention is that tips are split between a pool of dealers and staff within a cardroom or casino, rather than the dealer keeping the tips he or she earns individually. This might be one reason why a lot of poker dealers do not strive to be excellent.

If the wages are low, who wants to be a poker dealer? The hours are unsociable and the job can be draining. At the rates paid by some UK cardrooms, many applicants would be better advised to seek work as a night-cleaner or a shop assistant.

The reduced wages paid to dealers, and the lack of tips they can expect to earn, means that being a poker dealer in the UK is not viewed as a career. It is more seen as a stopgap job, or a student job, or viewed upon by some, unfortunately, as a piss-about job.

If wages were increased, standards would increase. You would see many more people applying to the cardrooms. The cardrooms could be more selective about who they train. Players would be happier...

AND WE WOULD ALL GET TO SEE MORE HANDS

That was because of the 'poker tax'.

What do people think is a fair hourly for dealers in this country?

That's going to be hard for poker players to answer Cos because most of them are tight arses and they know that a pay rise means a bigger rake. ;D ;D ;D


Maybe there should be a shift allowance for when they work until the wee hours. Tipping is the way forward once the English get used to it, but I don't agree with pooling the tips. Let them keep their own tips but have the amounts declared on a leader board in their backroom workplace (locker romm or similar). Reward the best and the less enthusiastic will either get better, earn less or find another career. Obv the management have to rotate them so they all get a fair share of the best tipping situations.

Hi Kev,

It was a question to players and dealers alike really.

I've been thinking about it since going to Vegas. It was my first time out there and I was shocked that the rake was so small.

I might not be very popular for saying it but I don't think dealers deserve £20 an hour.

In England, a lot of the cash games rake so hard that if you give tips too, it can be losing you a lot of money. There has to be some kind of balance. I always tip but would definitely tip more if rake wasn't so high.

£20 an hour does seem excessive if it's an employed position, with regular shifts and guaranteed hours.  I think it's fair to say dealers employed by casinos are paid considerably less than that.  Different kettle of fish for freelancers who are working on a self-employed 'as and when' basis though - seems a reasonable charge in those circumstances.

A lot of dealers are on a 'zero hours' contract aren't they?  So although one month they can get plenty of work, it's possible that the following month they might not get the hours they want.  Also, if someone's ill or takes holiday when on a zero hours contract, I'm guessing they don't receive any remuneration during that period?

As for the question of whether tips should be pooled or not, that's a difficult one.  In an ideal world, the dealers who deal the best, and make the game as enjoyable as possible for the players deserve to be rewarded.  At DTD the tips are pooled and shared out, and there must be a reasoning behind it.  I know that dealers are rotated between tournaments and cash games, and that's part of the reason.  Any tips the tournament winners leave are then shared amongst all the dealers, and the same with any cash tips.  I think the front-of-house staff also get a share too (might be wrong)?  I know the valets keep the tips they're given individually.

How do other places in the UK deal with the dealers' tips?  Also, please correct me if I've got it wrong about how the tips are distributed at DTD as well.

most cardrooms (as opposed to casinos), at least in london, now use the american bonus chip system for tournaments. not sure if it`s pooled with cash tips or not though

The law in cardrooms that hold a casino license in the uk, is that all tips must be pooled and distributed equally. Preferably using a Tronc system.

However I have just searched the gambling commissions website for the actual wording and cannot get a reference to anything that relates to it now?

I can see pros and cons to both methods. For tournaments I think it makes sense to pool them.

For cash I'd like to think i'm tipping a specific dealer who I think is good. I guess the problem here is some dealers on a certain shift might get to spend more time on a better table tipping wise which isn't neccesarily fair.

Respect

Would £8ph be a shit wage ? I think that would be reasonable for sitting dealing a deck of cards.

Some good points an im very against pooling tips personally as im sure if people worked individually they would try harder to do their job better to earn the maximum rather than going through the motions as i used to wait tables an i would get to earn my own tips an im sure if i would have to share them it would of given me less drive !

But the point here is not so much the tipping aspect its surely the wage structure they get as working in tescos an dealing cards there is apparently more intelligence needed an understanding in maths needed to do one job but not the other so why is dealing a min wage job ?

In the US obvioulsy the culture is more tip oriented an they keep there own tips but here in the UK we treat tipping dealers as a bonus as cost of living is higher an the rake is alot higher which makes it harder for the pro players to make it profitable. But most of this subject on tipping on profibilty would apply to cash game players as if you win a tournament you dont mind giving 1% to 2% of your profit as the chunk of £ is so high.

So may be the answer is rather having a quantity of £6 an hour wage dealers but having a quality of £10 an hour dealers would be better ? Dony know why everywhere has to have dealers for min buy in toruneys or cash games as back in the day all small buy ins were self dealt with the juice been minimal compared to todays juice ! I know a splayers we like dealers but if you can pay half the rake or half the reg fee surely long term its +ev ?

Night shifts stacking shelves probably pay more, dealing properly and accurately at speed is a skilled job, doing that whilst keeping up to 9 players in order is more than just a skilled job.

Being a cleaner,cleaning rooms quick enough to a high standard is a skilled job,and a tough one to.When I was a kitchen porter earning £5ph I was happy to be working and earning money.I've only ever had a problem with dealers who are rude never on how good they're at dealing as most places I've played they've been decent enough.If they feel underpaid they have an option,do something else.BTW £8ph in the north east is probably seen very differnetly to £8ph down south.

agreed

lol, that's a generous super market you've got there - I think minimum wage is more common.

I don't think dealing count as a skilled job, semi-skilled would be more appropriate (to put that into context, every job requires some skill or another - that's not what qualifies as skilled).

I'd say dealing is equivalent to a bank clerk. Obviously the longer you work somewhere, the better performance reviews you get and the more senior you get all puts your pay up - but a quick look over recruitment websites suggests that £6 - £8 p/h is what they get.

That's outside of London - obviously a weighting for that should always be applicable.

Also vey true about the north an south divide! An the point about rudeness from dealers is very common on where they should draw the line in terms of repsecting the players! i know it goes both ways has as players we are gultiy too, but it happens that maybe we get to friendly with dealers which can lead to the respect loss during the game an the proffesionlism suffers.........

I'd expect no dealer could say I'd been rude but agreed some people are way out of line.But then that is also the case in most jobs.

I am friendly with several people who are dealers but a 'very skilled job' it is NOT.

Self-deal is terrible.  Would rather pay more juice or not play at all than self-deal.

yeah after a night on piss wt  normal people on £6 an hour i would tell you 2 grow up  an show respect for working class people u JOCKEY as my good m8 SIMON NOWAB would say !

where is chubbs? not seen him in ages

In some Vegas casinos the numbers of hands dealt per down are recorded and the dealers that deal the most hands per down get the better shifts and better tables in a rotation to deal.

in the uk casinos/dtd are paying the govt. between 30% and 50% duty on poker rake due to a cock up as the quango involved deemed rake the same as GP

until that is sorted out poker cant be +ev for any casino surely?

our local game at gala is now raked 10% cap £6 now thats ok for £1/2/4 omaha but they have 2 tables of 25p/50p NLHE going too. now that is a hard game to beat.

You can teach any person to deal NLH in a day or two. That's not something I'd dispute and thus I wouldn't consider it a "skilled" profession. The same thing does not apply to say, an electrician, a plumber or to use an extreme - a doctor.

That said, there's a varying degree of competence between dealers and even the exceptional are not going to earn any more than £10 working outside of London -- at least not on a full time contract for a casino. While unfortunate, I'm sure, it's simply not practical in a business sense given that poker seems barely profitable as it stands with the introduction of this recent tax.

The EPT dealers, on the other hand, work what? One event per month? So the amount they're paid per hour needs to be sufficient to make it a viable occupation given the "off time" between events. I'd also suspect their position is less secure than someone who is contracted full time and thus this also needs to be taken into consideration. I'd love to do it if I knew I would be handed a contract for say, twelve months, after passing the sufficient reviews and table tests but I'd not risk a secure job on the chance (however confident I might feel in my own ability) that I might be dropped after a single event.

From my own opinion as someone who has been involved with poker from the other side of the tables, I think the money is decent given the work required. The lifestyle is likely the biggest detriment to the long term retention of such staff -- people with a family aren't going to be able to manage the flexibility and the hours required without some sacrifices that most others aren't forced into taking. You also need to consider that it's a very limited avenue in terms of progression and so this factors in to people moving off to work in a profession with clear and structured progression that I just can't see being possible in the poker world or even the casino world.

While a reasonable measure of gauging the speed and efficiency of a dealer -- you have to take into consideration that every hand is, if not unique, as close as to. Am I to be penalized for the "dwelling up" of players and other such interruptions that are common place in a game?

That's what I thought when I first read it, but if it were averaged over a year for example I would have thought this would be a pretty good measure for performance related pay. You'd have to be pretty unlucky to 'always' have the slow tables.

Yeh its a shame that non-professionalism happens a lot

Have a look at the Austrians, some American and a few of the top English dealers before you make sweeping statements. Dealing 7 card stud the way they do, and PLO with perfect pots etc,  they def would be counted as very skilled. I get your point, but there's a big difference between a standard casino dealer and a very skilled prof, it takes years of practice and dedication to get near them!

Not a 'very skilled job'. Wouldn't take years at all.

Almost every job has a skill or two involved - doesn't make it a skilled job let alone a 'very' skilled one.

sigh

Reading some of the opinions and attitudes here it''s clear to see why most Uk players will have to put up weith complainging about monkey dealers for years to come, until you sort out your attitudes and respect the job a good dealer does, and the skills involved with doing that job well you'll just have to keep moaning.

Not worth me listing the qualities and skills needed to be a top dealer, as it's cear some here just don't have the depth of knowledge or understanding to respect that, a very sorry state of affairs imho!

Probably is worth you listing these skills needed because I reckon that 80%+ of the UK population have them and they aren't particularly hard.

Also, no one is disrespecting the job dealers do, but your view of what's required of a dealer is somewhat skewed.

Are you a dealer Jackinbeat ?

When I say it's not a very skilled job I'd also say a lot of jobs are not very skilled jobs,I would say an Accountant isn't a very skilled job I'd also say a footballer isn't a very skilled job;as it doesn't take a lot of different qualities to be good at these jobs.I would say a Surgoen is a very skilled job.

hmmm, well maybe we are saying the same thing, some footballers are obv skilled, and i never said 'very' skilled that was you, or Greekstein. What I am saying is some dealers work for years to reach the top of their profession, and clearly are more skilled that others, so it's a job you can train for years to become alot more skilled than someone who just picks up and sets a deck of cards, as someone else said.

Obv a surgeon is more than very skilled, and i'm not comparing dealers to a surgeon, more saying that if you look at the EPT staff, they have all trained for years to reach the top of their profession, and are highly skilled dealers, kinda feels like you are looking for a reason to standardise all dealers when clearly there is a big difference is the skills of some compared to others.

I'm a dj and music producer btw

I might do, as we are currently working towards a dealer qualification, with different levels, each level having it's own level of skill needed. Will be a while though, but i'm happy to share that and would be very open to all constructive criticism of the levels and skills required.

How about you start it off with what you see as the skills 80% of us already possess?

- Ability to concentrate
- Use of hands
- Basic maths ability.

Plus customer service skills

essentially the same skills good shop assistants will have with a bit of extra nimbleness and a bit harder arithmetic - that's why before I suggested the pay for dealers would appropriately be on the same level of bank clerks.

what software do you use to produce music? it's something i have been meaning to get into for ages, just looks so complicated tho

i'm told customer facing bank staff are under a lot of pressure to meet sales targets these days, maybe poker dealers should get paid a bonus to persuade the players to play on the fruit machines or roulette table instead

This is what I said last time we had a tipping debate. For the most part. it's still true.

This isn't a tipping debate, it's about the difference between a basic casino dealer and a top level poker dealer as far as i know.

Over 4 pages it seems to me more like about how much dealers are 'worth', some people early on suggested that you get better dealers when people start tipping the good ones more often. I don't see how tipping should ever be considered part of a pay package, I think tipping should be a bonus extra on top of expected income and higher ability and experience should be rewarded with performance related pay rises.

But Red definitely isn't the first person to bring tipping into the debate

Is there a difference between the skill level required and the effort put in to be better at something ?

Crazy post imo Ray, the number of skills required makes no difference.

A huge difference as one is limited by capability

Jackinbeat, what wage would a dealer to reach the top of your qualification scheme deserve in wages in your opinion?

GTFO this thread you clown,I was ticking along ok with my crazyness til you outed me.

Lol

Sorry I read it three times and though WTF RAYMOND.

Ill GTFO

Bye

Depends what the skills are.

Customer service and arithmetic will improve in direct correlation to how much effort and experience you invest in them.
Nimbleness for the dealing itself is more of a talent than a skill - but I'd expect there's a pretty small proportion of the population who physically couldn't get the hang of it.

In contrast, there are plenty of people who just haven't got the intellectual capacity to be a doctor or the creative capacity to be a stonemason for example - jobs which only specialists can do - they're the 'very skilled' jobs.

Spose you may as well stay now you've outed me xx

100 per cent agree, all games operating under the roof of a casino should be dealer dealt - period

While im disagreeing with people, Im going to disagree with these two aswell.

Self deal tourneys at Gala Notts used to be immense. I miss them greatly.

Yup, I loved that kid who used to deal an ace off the bottom of the pack to his mate. Every night.  I missed him, too, when he went inside for a VAT scam. 

Was that Iffy? If anyone was more appropriately named :) (or was it Ijaz? Remember the night he got caught by a guy who was built like a brick s***house )

Suffice to say, "Iffy" was well-named, yeah.

Happy days in many ways, but the cheating became endemic, & I enjoyed it less & less. I've not played there for 5 years or more, & have no plans to return. We seem to get along OK without each other.