Technical Skills

When we say technical skills, we’re referring to everything that is black and white about casino gaming, from the rules of the game to the execution of the procedures, and everything else that has a right or a wrong answer.

The pillars of technical skills are:

Game Knowledge
Game Pace
Monetary Transactions
Game Protection
Handling Dealing Breakdowns
Accurate Ratings

If you’re not sure what one of these, or even any of these, is, don’t worry, we’re going to dive into each one. The common theme of each of them is that there is a right and a wrong way to execute each.

Game Knowledge

The term game knowledge gets thrown around a lot in the casino business. It’s a simple term on its surface, but it refers to the in-depth knowledge of each of the games. If you played craps on a vacation one time and had the hang of how the game goes, you wouldn’t become a dealer and tell your managers that you know craps.

To know a game means being able to deal it without a shadow, meaning another more experienced dealer or floor watching you, and know how to handle issues on the game as they come, because they will.

When you’re a supervisor, you need to have all of that knowledge for each of the games in your section.

We have other videos that teach the games in-depth, so for this, we’re going to assume a cursory level of game of game knowledge for each game. Let’s go over some basic must-know information for different games. These might be a refresher for you, but we’re going over them because they are the most common mistakes or issues that we see on the casino floor.

Note: you’ll have to know the minimums and maximums of each of the games in your section, as well as the minimums and maximums of each side bet on each game, and be able to approve and/or correct payouts. I know it sounds like a lot, and it can be, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, you’ll know them all like second nature.

Blackjack

In blackjack you’ll need to know whether the table offers surrender or not. Most of the general population of gamblers won’t surrender, and might not even think to ask, but when they do ask, you’ll want to have the answer.

In blackjack, you’ll also have to be clear on the rules of even money. The industry standard on even money is if the game pays 3 to 2 on blackjack, even money is offered. If the game pays 6 to 5 on blackjacks then even money is not offered. A player may still take insurance on blackjack, but may not take even money. Players almost never insure their blackjacks, but it’s important to know that that is an option, and it’s almost the same thing.

Example: The player bets $100, gets a blackjack, and chooses to insure it for $50. If the dealer has the blackjack, the $100 bet pushes and the $50 insurance pays 2 to 1, which will be $100, even money on their original bet. If the dealer dosen’t have the blackjack, however, and this is the different part, the player simply loses the $50, before getting their $120 blackjack payout, resulting in a net gain of $70, less than even money on the original bet.

Again, most people won’t do it, but you need to know that they can, and need to understand how it works.

Another set of rules you’ll need to be familiar with for watching blackjack tables is the hitting, doubling, and splitting rules. Here are some questions you’ll be expected to know the answers to:

Can you double any first two cards?
Can you double after the split?
Can you resplit aces?
Does the dealer hit or stay on soft 17?

The answers to these will vary from casino to casino, and many times there will be at least a few variations of those on the same casino floor, so be sure to learn which rule variations your casino offers.

Three Card Poker

Affectionately called TCP, three card poker is one of the most common games on the casino floor. It’s a fairly easy game to learn and operate, but there are a few complexities that we’ll go over now, to make sure your TCP knowledge is top notch.

First, a straight beats a flush. Three card poker is obviously a poker game, but it differs from classic poker in the way that a straight beats a flush. With only three cards, rather than five, the odds shift a bit, making a straight harder to achieve than a flush, therefore, a straight ranks higher, and pays more on the bonus.

Next, let’s talk about the ante bonus for a second. The ante bonus is triggered when the player gets a straight or better. When this happens, usually the ante bet is paid, then the extra amount for the ante bonus is set off to the side of that.

Sometimes though, the ante bonus is triggered when the player has a losing hand, for instance if the player has a straight, but the dealer has a higher straight. It’s rare, but it happens, and it can trip us up if we aren’t prepared. When this happens, the ante bonus is paid. If the player gets a straight, three of a kind, or a straight flush, the ante bonus is paid regardless of the dealer's hand.

Ultimate Texas Hold’Em

Our next game is commonly referred to as UTH or simply “Ultimate”, and is maybe the most popular of the specialty games. I believe that it’s also the hardest to deal and supervise. There is a lot happening on an Ultimate table, especially if there is a progressive on the game, which there often is.

As the dealer is settling hands on UTH, there are a lot of cards looking at you: the 5 community cards, the dealers two cards, the players two cards. You need to be able to group them together and see the hands quickly, including the progressive which typically only includes the first 3 community cards (the flop), and the players two cards.

If seeing the hands isn’t difficult enough, you’ll also need to memorize and be able to recall the rules and procedures as you go. For instance, it’s common for casinos to require the players to be seated while handling the cards on UTH, and all handheld games for that matter. Most casinos also prohibit information sharing between the players, which is when they tell each other what cards they have in order to help them decide whether to bet or not. There could also be rules about when the players are allowed to pick up their cards, where they need to be placed after they bet, if they’re allowed to touch them again after they bet, and many other intricacies that can and will vary from casino to casino.

Let’s go over a rule that is universal to the game and does not vary. This rule may seem like a basic rule of the game, and we’ve covered it in our videos about UTH, but we’re covering it here because we see it come up on tables all the time, where the player isn’t sure about it and asks, or the dealer makes a mistake or doesn’t know the rules correctly.

Here we go. Ante bets can be hard to keep track of because quite a few poker derivative games have an ante bet. They’re not always in the same spot, and they don’t always have the same rules, so we are going to clear up the UTH ante bet right now. On Ultimate, the ante bet pushes if the dealer doesn’t qualify with a pair. Different casinos may have different procedures on how to execute this, but the easiest way is to push each player’s ante bet back to them as soon as the dealer sets their hand. This prevents the unintentional paying of any lingering ante bets.

It’s also important to remember that after you return everyone’s ante bet back to them, hands are settled normally, meaning the player’s hand must beat the dealer’s hand in order to be paid on the Play bet. It does not automatically win, as it does on some other games.

If you already knew all of these, then great! You’re already pretty well equipped to handle questions and issues on the table as a supervisor. Thanks for hanging in there with us through the refresher.

Now, lets’s get into some more technical skills in the form of optimizing game pace.