Player Ratings: Getting the Numbers Right

Accurate Ratings

As far as most of the people who come into a casino and play at the tables know, the principal function of a casino supervisor is to rate the players, and do so perfectly. This isn’t true, of course, but I say it to make the point that it’s pretty much the most important thing to the guests. They want to be rated accurately. If they think their ratings are off even a little bit, they get very frustrated by this.

The tricky part with that is that they don’t know how to rate themselves accurately either. A lot of times, you’ll encounter someone who bets $25 for an hour but throws a few $100 bets out at the end, then thinks their average bet should be $50 or $75. This isn’t how it works. A more accurate rating would be something like $30-$35.

Our job is to balance that expectation with realistically accurate ratings. If you’re not paying attention, or even if you just get busy or sidetracked, you could easily end up with a guest who deserves $100 average bet, but you never see it or get sidetracked and forget to change it from $15 or $25.

A habit you’ll want to have is to notice and have an idea of what everyone in your section is betting. That sounds overwhelming, and it sort of is, but that’s part of knowing what’s going on in your section. If you keep an eye on bets and have a general idea of what everyone is betting, the ones with rewards cards at the very least, it will be easier to close them out with an accurate rating when they leave.

I wish that average bets were the only part of keeping accurate ratings, but there’s more. Most rating systems have a speed variance, too. This is actually quite important, as it gives the players more or fewer points depending on the speed of the game. Usually, there are three speed options: fast, medium, or slow. If they’re playing heads up with the dealer on a fast-moving game, they should be rated at a higher speed, or they’re not getting all the points they deserve.

On the other side, lots of players will try to play slowly or take breaks and hope that you don’t notice, causing them to accumulate way more points than they deserve, which is to the detriment of the business. It’s our job to notice that and rate them at a slower speed, or pause the rating when they take breaks.

Most rating systems often have a skill setting. This one is a bit trickier, but once you understand it, your ratings will be more accurate than any of your coworkers. Again, there are usually three settings: poor, average, and skilled. You might see various wordings of this, but it boils down to how skilled the player is.

The idea of this is to rate them not only on how fast the game moves or how much they bet, but also on how they play the game.

For instance, in blackjack games, if they play all the side bets or make poor playing decisions, you’d rate them at the lowest skill level, because the house has a greater advantage over their play, which means they should earn more points.

On the other hand, if they play no side bets and play according to basic strategy consistently (which you’ll know because you’ve done your homework!), they should be rated on the highest skill level, because the house has a lower advantage over them, so they should earn fewer points.

The reality is that the the majority of people you rate will be somewhere in the middle, so it’s easy to get stuck in the habit of rating people for medium speed and average skill (most computer systems default to that), it’s important to remember that you can change it, and that you should when the situation calls for it.

That wraps it up for technical skills. Now, let’s move on to personal skills!