The casino is like
another country; it has its own rules, language and culture. Each table
game is like a province in a country, with its own distinct dialects
and mores. To not feel like an unwanted foreigner, you have to understand
the language and culture of the games you are playing -- and then you
must happily assimilate. You can't speak your own language at the casino
tables; you must learn the language of the mother country. The casino
is Lady Luck's melting pot. And there's only one way to do things when
in a casino - the casino's way!
The Buy-in
Before you can play
any casino table game, you have to exchange your cash for chips. Here
certain rules apply at every and all games. You can never hand your
money directly to the dealer. He or she isn't allowed to take anything
directly from the hands of a player. In fact, a dealer isn't even allowed
to shake the hands of a player! You must put your money on the layout.
The dealer will
take the money on the layout and spread it for the camera and the floorperson
to check. The floorperson is the man or woman not in uniform who oversees
several tables in a pit. A pit is a group of tables, usually of the
same game, in a given area of the casino. The person in charge of a
pit is a pit boss!
Once the floorperson
okays the amount of the buy-in, the dealer then takes chips out of
his chip tray and counts out stacks that will equal the amount of the
buy-in and stuffs the cash into a hole in the table where it is collected
in a drop-box. Again, the floorperson checks to make sure that the dealer
has counted everything out correctly. When the dealer gets the nod,
he slides the stacks of chips to the player, usually saying, "Good
luck, sir" or "Good luck, ma'am."
The casinos are
sticklers for the proper buy-in procedures. They have to be. The most
frequent source of theft in a casino is from the casino's own personnel.
Often such theft is in collusion with a player, who is either a friend
or relative of the dealer. By making the physical contact between dealer
and player verboten, it reduces the possibility of, say, the player
announcing he's buying in for a $100, getting $100 worth of chips, when,
in fact, he handed the dealer a $10 bill which was quickly stuffed into
the drop-box.
Of course, even
with all the proper procedures in place, cheating dealers can sometimes
be so ingenious in their tricks that they are able to rip off their
employers anyway. I saw a video, presented at a security seminar, where
a dealer was able to shovel chips directly into her sleeve as she counted
out chips or collected chips from losing bets. Once she had several
chips up her sleeve, she would then raise her arm slightly and the chips
would go down into her shirt. If you weren't told what to look for,
you would never have seen the move - it was that fast!
In the past, dealers
have shoveled chips into their pants (usually they'd have a sock in
their crotches that would hold the chips), and their mouths, and some
dealers have even "accidentally" (but fast) dropped chips
that their player-henchmen would later "find" on the floor.
You'll note that many casinos now have dealers wearing shirts that have
sleeves that cling tightly to the wrists and aprons that surround their
pants or dresses.
Betting
Procedures
Casino chips come
in all sorts of denominations and colors. Usually, $1 chip are white
(sometimes blue); $5 chips are red; $25 chips are green; $100 chips
are black; $500 chips are purple; $1,000 chips are gold or grey, and
$2,000 chips are orange. It's rare to see denominations larger than
$2,000, except in some high roller rooms. The sizes of the chips vary
as well. The $1 to $500 chips are the same size but, usually, the $1,000
and higher denominations are somewhat larger.
Once you have your
chips, you can begin to bet. However, even here there are certain protocols
that must be followed. When you are betting different denominations
of chips, you must place the highest denomination on the bottom and
go up accordingly. So if you want to bet $131, you'd put a black chip
on the bottom, a green chip on top of that, a red chip on the green
chip, and a white chip on the red chip. With the exception of roulette,
all casino table games within the same casino use the same denominations
and colors. Because individual bets from a variety of players are stacked
next to and upon one another, roulette games have many different colored
chips, the denominations of which are determined by the player. When
a player buys in at roulette, he'll state what he wants the value of
his particular colored chips to be. Although a player can, at times,
bet the normal casino chips at roulette, he can usually do so if he's
the only one betting accordingly.
Each individual
game will have certain protocols as well. These I will discuss in future
articles. Suffice it to say that if you want to have an easy time of
it, you follow the rules of the casino road. The game goes smoothly
when everyone knows what he or she is doing. Otherwise it's a nightmare
of missed cues, mistaken bets, and upset players and dealers.
