5 Steps to Take During a Fire Alarm

Let’s say you’re dealing in this scenario, and all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off.

What do you do? What are the policies and procedures? Do you know exactly the steps to take when you are in that situation? Or, are you one of those people that just stop exactly what you are doing, drop everything and they run out of the casino screaming?

Step 1: Don't Leave the Table

Now hopefully there isn’t a fire. But there are steps to take during a fire alarm. So let’s get started. Now the very first step to take is --

Step No. 1, is don’t leave the table. Don’t leave the table. I was completely serious when I said people would drop everything that they were doing and run out the door. I have seen that happen. So you don’t want to leave your table. You want to stay on the table.

Step 2: Put Your Lid Over the Bank

So, Step No. 2 after don’t leave the table, the first thing you need to do when you hear that fire alarm OR second thing to do, is you need to grab your lid and put it up over your chips, over your bank.

You have to do this immediately. As soon as you hear the fire alarm. So if you are dealing on a handheld game, just go ahead and set the deck down really quick, pull out the lid, put it up on your bank and make sure that that is protected. So you want to make sure your game is protected. That is your most important role in this situation, is to protect your table, protect your bank. So put up your lid and make sure you protect those checks.

Before we continue on to the next three steps, I just want to remind you to tip your dealer. You can always tip your dealer!

So we talked about step No. 1 and we talked about step No. 2.

Step No. 1 Don't leave the table. Step No. 2 Take your lid and put it up over your bank. Now if you guys have any questions during this, please feel free to ask in the comments and I will definitely answer them.

Step 3: If There is a Fire, Tell Players to Evacuate

On to step No. 3...Step No. 3 is if there is an actual fire, if you see flames coming you know.

If you have your floor supervisor tell you there is an actual fire, then you must inform your players to evacuate. Again, between step No. 2 and step No. 3 there is a lot of waiting. You are basically waiting to see if the fire alarm is a false alarm or if it is real. Step No. 2, your sitting there, you have your lid up over your bank, you are protecting your table and you are waiting to find out if the fire alarm is false or if it is a real fire alarm.

Step No. 3 is if there is actually a fire. If there is not a fire, they will let you know. You will put the lid back where it is supposed to go and you will continue dealing like normal. But if there is a real fire. We go on to step No. 3. Step No. 3: Tell players to evacuate!

Step 4: Wait for Your Manager

We have talked about three steps so far. The third step tell players to evacuate if there is actually a fire. Now step No. 4 is wait for the manager. If there is a fire, the manager will be running around locking all of the lids and letting dealers go. So that is who you will be waiting for. You are going to wait for your manager to come by, lock the lid. You have to clap out of course. And they will tell you what to do next.

Step 5: Lock Your Lid, Clap Out, Follow Evacuation Directions

That is step No. 5 you lock your lid, you clap out and you follow the directions from the casino manager. Usually they will tell you to evacuate as well. They will tell you where everybody is meeting. For example all the dealers are meeting next to parking lot No. 2 on the west side or something like that. You would go there and you would evacuate the casino and you just sit there and you wait until they tell you that it is ok an you can go back in. Or your casino burns down, one of the two. But anyway! Let me know if you guys have any questions again.

What to do during a fire alarm:

The five steps to take during a fire alarm:

• Step 1: Don’t leave the table
• Step 2: Put your lid over the bank (Remember we are not sure its a false alarm or not)
• Step 3: We actually know that there is a fire, so we tell players to evacuate.
• Step 4: Wait for your manager
• Step 5: You lock your lid, clap out and follow the directions to evacuate

Questions & Answers

Q: When you leave your table do you take your toke box?

Answer:

That is a great question! Really it just depends on the fire. It depends on where the fire is, how big the fire is, how fast it is going. If it is a small little fire up in one of the rooms, yes you will pick up your toke box, you're going to dump it in the toke box. There is usually an area where we put our money. So we would put it in that area. And then you would put the tote box back on your table and you would evacuate. Now if the fire is engulfing the casino and it is two feet away and you gotta get running, you're just going to run. Screw the money, your life is more important.

And that is one of the things when you're hired as a dealer. If there is ever a fire, your life is more important than the chips. Remember that! The money doesn’t matter, the chips don’t matter, nothing matters they just want to make sure you live through it. They don’t want you to die in the fire. If the fire is real close, screw the money and get out. Again it really depends on the situation, it depends on where the fire is. How big the fire is, if your life is in danger or not. If your life is in danger then that is the most important thing so get out!

Q: How do players cash out if the casino burns down?

Answer:

That’s a great question. So while we are sitting there and also it depends on the fire. If the fire is right there, we will know it, we will know that our lives are in danger. If the fire is right there more than likely the players will just throw all their chips in their shirt and run out. You know take the chips with them. If we are sitting there waiting and it’s a long time and it is one of those where it’s afire in a room and they have it pretty much contained. Then while we are waiting the dealer might be coloring you guys up just to be on the safe side. Especially if you have a lot of chips. But they don’t expect you to leave your chips. Unless the fire is huge and the roof is coming down on you, they don’t expect you to leave the chips. You would either take them with you or the dealer would color you up so you have fewer chips to take.

Table Game Inventor Questions

Q: Why do so many people try to come up with new table games when it looks like no one picks them up? If you get your game picked up is the reward like hitting the lottery?

That is a great question. Being a table game inventor is extremely difficult. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of money, it takes a lot of effort.

You have to market it, just like you are marketing a product and therefore there is a lot of work that goes into it beforehand. You don’t even know if the casino is going to like it or not. If the casino does like it, if they put your game in their casino, then what typically happens is the casino will pay that table game inventor a monthly fee for that game. And that monthly fee could range anywhere from -- depending on if it is a side bet versus if it’s an actual real table. It could range -- and again the table game inventors make the contract with the casinos so whatever price they set, if the casino accepts it. This is just a range, for a side bet it would be something like $200 and for a table game it could range from $400 to $800. And that is for one game per month.

If you have a casino that has let’s say three card poker games, they are paying that -- three card poker is pretty good so I would say $500, you are paying $500 per table. I don’t know how much they are paying for three card poker. I am just using that as an example. So that would be $500 per table. There’s three tables, $1500 for that one casino. Now if you have it in 100 casinos and that is per month, yeah that is sorta like hitting the lottery. But only 1% of table game inventors will actually get their game on the level of three card poker, ultimate texas hold’em, high card flush. But when you do get it you get it big.

Now high card flush is one of those games that is really popular right now. If you guys didn’t know -- Before high card flush became popular it was just sitting in the corner in a casino like nobody was playing it, nobody liked the game. It was -- I think it was several months, maybe a year or more where it was just not doing anything. And then who knows what happened, but it just exploded and now it is everywhere. It is one of those really weird things. And again, being a table game inventor is just like creating a product and putting it on the shelf. There is a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of effort to get that product on the shelf for you to buy. Same thing.