Do dealers represent a very mechanical part of the game when you play, or doyou wonder what’s behind their uniforms and serious faces? Dealers runinteresting lives, and as a group, they are a minority, usually secluded ingambling cities around the casinos. Dealers can tell you some of the mostinteresting stories, and they definitely have a hectic and tiresome job.

According to player and author Kaeline Minton, the journey to becoming adealer is a bumpy one but definitely feasible if you do your best in stressfulsituations. She actually entertained the thought of becoming a dealer ratherthan a poker pro – since according to her, she lacks the skills to supportherself as a poker player. However, living inGeorgia, where no casinos are found, she had to dig deep and go underground,where she found a community of poker rooms, which werelooking for dealers at the time. There, Minton met a professional dealer, whotutored her before starting her dealer gig at the Georgian underground rooms.Before taking personal tutoring, she recommends reading the Professional PokerDealer’s Handbook, which she says it is essential for learning the theory andbackground of poker dealing.

Minton got excited about the 2005 World Poker Open in Tunica, to which sheapplied for a dealer job, took 2 weeks off from work and got herself her firstformal dealer job. Before getting the job, “[she] had to pay $75(non-refundable) to the Goldstrike, who handled the application for [her]Mississippi Gaming License.”

Minton found out dealers make minimum wage from casinos in Mississippi, andthey supplement their salaries with tokes, or tips. Dealers report all tokes tothe casino and all of their winnings are taxed. In general, dealers can makebetween $20 to $30 an hour, taxing half of it.

For her first time as a dealer, she got a swing shift (7 pm to 3 am) in theSingle Table Satellites, the easiest tables in a tournament, for which sheearned $16 per STS dealt, and her tokes ranged between $10 and $50. Later inthe tournament, she was assigned to the high-limit cash games, in which Mintonwas dealing 20-minute downs at each table and charging a pot fee for thewinners before handing them their winnings. Her experience juggling all thiswas stressful but manageable, as she said, “sometimes I would push the pot tothe winner and then go ‘Oops, I forgot to take the time charge’ and have to askthe player for $35 back – trust me when I say this will make most playerscranky and will negatively impact your tokes!” The tokes Minton received in thecash tables ranged from $2 to $25.

During the final phase of the tournament, Minton was assigned to the maintables, after which every dealer had to turn in the tips received in a tippingpool and the casino management would split it in equal parts among all ofthem.

After the tournament, Minton called her supervisor hoping to receive somefeedback, and she was surprised to know her supervisor was disappointed abouther leaving and expressed her satisfaction with her performance.

Even though Minton had a nice trip as a dealer, she does not recommend it asa main or first-option career, since it is very hard to support a livingworking only as a dealer, especially in states where they don’t enjoy manybenefits. However, she does recommend it as a supplementary career to your mainone, or as a transitional one.

As a general caution, when people interested in dealing live in states wherecasinos are banned, going underground may be dangerous if police raids occur,since underground dealers are harshly punished if arrested, more thanunderground players. According to Launch Poker, a home poker game was raidedthis month in South Carolina, and more than 50 people were arrested, from which7 were dealers. The dealers will be facing a fine of $2,000 for each count andone year in prison.

The Vegas dealer blogger shared his hectic life as a dealer in one of hisblogs, saying that dealer schedules are some of the worst in employment.Depending on the demand and the events, you can work from 8 hours to 50 in oneweek, and in predictable days, the casinos usually tell you whether they aregoing to need you or not, but in unpredictable days, they have you on stand-by,waiting for their call any minute of the day. It also can take a while to get afull-time dealing job, usually months. The good thing is that in good days,dealers can go home with large tips, up to $300. Of course, dealer salaries inVegas are much better than in no-gambling states.

If you are interested in becoming a poker dealer, but have no time to attenddealer school, there is an online course available, which claims to teach youeverything you need to know for dealing, with demonstration videos from aprofessional dealer who works at the Bellagio. They warn potential clients thatdealing is not for everybody, since in the poker arena, dealers must have a thick skin and take the mood swings ofpoker players, who usually take their frustrations out on them. Dealers mustalways be nice and respectful to nasty players at all times, which isdefinitely not for everybody. The kit costs $197, and according to them, allyou need to start training is an internet connection. For more informationabout this product, visit dealer-training.com.

Hopefully, the information in this article was useful not only for the merecurious but also for the people interested in making some tokes in the nearfuture. Keep in mind, though, that dealing is a career you must carefully thinkabout and we recommend you pursue it the right way.