How to Become a Poker Dealer

By Erik Reed

Dealing poker is one of the best jobs in the world. It is definitely one of the best paying jobs you can get without a college degree or even any certified training. Poker devotees will love learning the ins and outs of the game from the dealer chair and improving their game by observing thousands of hands and a multitude of player types. With the help of instruction, diagrams, photos and exercises, this book will help you learn the procedures, rules and techniques required to become a poker dealer. The book also provides inside tips on where to work, how to land a job, how to conduct yourself at the table and what to expect once you're a dealer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257260218

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

My dream was to become a poker dealer. I loved the game and wanted to find a way I could make money dealing it. I had learned that poker dealers make fairly good money but I didn’t know how I could actually become one. I looked for books on the subject but couldn’t find anything that would prepare me to audition. That’s why I’m writing this book. I want to make it possible for others to enter this fine profession if it is their dream the way it was mine.

Hopefully, I can shorten the journey a bit. Personally, I floundered for a couple of years before I finally made my way into dealing poker. I asked around at local cardrooms and casinos, talking to poker-room managers and poker dealers, trying to get some sense of how I could learn the craft well enough to audition without paying an arm and a leg for instruction that might or might not get me a job. One dealer offered to teach me for $200 a day. A school that was about 100 miles away offered a two-week course for about $2,000. My problem was that I was in debt at the time and couldn’t afford tuition or even the gas expense to go to school.

So, I ended up taking the long way around. I answered an ad to become a blackjack dealer at a local casino and worked in the pit until the casino opened a poker room and offered its employees a class for poker dealers. In all, from the time when I first decided I wanted to become a poker dealer, it took me about two years to achieve my goal. With study of this book and devoted practice, readers may be ready to audition for a poker-dealer position in as little as a month. Also, by following this book, you will be able to prepare in your spare time at home instead of having to drive to a school that may only offer classes during your work hours and may be a great distance from where you live.

I sincerely hope you get a lot out of this book. Although the primary purpose of the book is to prepare you to find a satisfying, lucrative job as a poker dealer, the secondary purpose is to offer poker enthusiasts and those seeking to become professional players a way to experience and learn much more about the game through dealing. As a dealer, not only do you get to sit and observe thousands of hands for free, but you actually can get paid well for it. You also will adopt mental skills and a level of awareness that is critical to becoming a quality player. As a dealer, you will learn to identify player types, playing styles, and even the occasional tell. In short, you may learn to read players. You will see first-hand which strategies work, which don’t work and why. You’ll get to see which players consistently do well and which consistently lose their bankroll in an hour or two.

I offer some insights about playing poker towards the end of the book, but the best insights will be your own after dealing for a substantial period of time. In your first year, you will be working to perfect your ability as a dealer. After your first year, however, more and more of your attention will be on the game itself. If you are an avid student of the game, your natural curiosity will drive you to question what is happening and to learn from your experiences at the table. In other words, you will be getting paid to be a student of the game. For me, there is no better profession in the world. Good luck on your journey!

WHY BE A POKER DEALER

I desperately wanted to be a poker dealer because it seemed to integrate everything I was looking for in a job. It involved a game I was fascinated by and loved being a student of. It was a job that I could clock in and out of and that didn’t involve sales or bringing work home with me. Instead, it had me tossing cards to a bunch of poker players who I looked forward to working with, joking with, and, of course, studying. I also knew that a number of professional poker players had first been poker dealers, at which job they had, over many years, acquired tremendous experience and insight from different games, players and strategies.

What I didn’t know when I started was how much money poker dealers can make. On average, depending on how busy a room is, dealers (even beginning dealers) can make somewhere around $30 per hour (including your minimum wage from the casino). Now, this is not always true. If you are starting out in a room, they may put you on a slow shift in which you make hardly anything over your minimum wage. Sometimes even veteran dealers make very little if their poker room’s business is suffering. If you work in a busy room, however, and can manage to get 40 hours per week, you can make around $60,000 or more a year. I know of one dealer who makes closer to $80,000 a year (though he’s been dealing for more than a decade and works long hours at an extremely busy poker room). Those are terrific incomes for a job that requires no college degree and no extensive technical training. In addition, some casinos will even offer you medical benefits and free food from their employee dining room.

In addition to its financial benefits, poker dealers get a lot of other perks, including (in some casinos) half-hour breaks every couple of hours, depending on how busy the room is. Of course, you want to work as much as possible, because the more you work, the more money you make. However, if you have to take half-hour breaks every hour or so, it makes your job pretty sweet. And if you are a student of the game, you can spend your breaks reading the countless poker books and magazines that are available from your poker room, bookstores or libraries. So, when you’re dealing, you’re making money and learning more about the game; and when you’re on break, you can read about and study the game. In addition, you will receive a lot of insight about playing poker from some of your fellow dealers and floor persons, many of whom are devoted players with decades of experience. Finally, you may be able to play cards in the same room where you work, which is a great way to apply what you learn as a dealer to your skills as a player. For students of the game, working as a poker dealer is a pretty great situation.

Not only do poker dealers get a lot of breaks, but they often work only four days a week (in 10-hour shifts). That means dealers often have three-day weekends, which not only lets you experience a leisure lifestyle that will be the envy of your friends, but it allows you to play a lot of poker on your days off, if this is of interest to you, either for recreation or to hone your skills toward becoming a professional. Also, because dealers can earn a very good income, you may have the excess cash needed to play cash or tournament games on your many days off.

A less tangible benefit of being a poker dealer is the recognition you get from your poker playing peers. There is a community of regular poker players, many of whom know each other and share a lot of camaraderie. Being a poker dealer will often make you recognized by at least