List Headline Image
Updated by sdfb on Feb 16, 2022
 REPORT
sdfb sdfb
Owner
0 items   2 followers   0 votes   1 views

How Lady Luck Learned to Play Casino Craps

Not too long ago, casino craps was very much branded as a "boys' game." The players were male and so were the casino craps dealers. That male exclusivity has changed, and I was part of that change when, in 1995, I moved to Las Vegas from my hometown of Mt. Pleasant, MI. Before moving across the country, I have been a blackjack dealer at the Soaring Eagle before deciding to improve the stakes and go begin to see the elephant, so to speak.

During my first weeks in Sin City, I perused many casinos and I saw that no women were dealing the craps games เกมบาคาร่า. This instantly added to my curiosity about craps, which I had played a few times and was still scratching my head over what had happened. I gathered that dealing craps was for guys only, which only made the thought of being truly a craps dealer enticing.

I soon decided that I desired to enter the boys' club, and I was off to dealer school and registered for a craps course. I studied hard and went to practice every evening and three weeks later was setup for my first job audition at the infamous El Cortez in downtown Las Vegas.

El Cortez was considered the most effective spot to break into craps because it'd three low limit dice tables, starting at a quarter, as in $0.25, on the line with two bits odds. Obviously, this was a busy place with layouts stuffed with bets and a proposition box that teemed just like a Manhattan street at lunch time. This is the notorious El Cortez "bird game" that was likely to coach you on just how to deal the larger games at nicer places where players bet in $25 units.

I was so nervous for my audition. To obtain a dealer job you've to audition on a live game. A lot of gaming companies have screening and interviewing processes for job applicants -- some don't, but it all boils right down to getting on a game title and showing the pit boss you can deal. It's the only way to seriously judge if anyone can perhaps work a game.

The July evening I went for my audition it had been 112 degrees out and I was wearing the correct long-sleeved white dress shirt and black slacks. On an area note, I'd trade a Las Vegas summer for a Michigan winter any day. I felt like I'd turn to ashes in the warmth as my nerves stoked my furnace of anxiety, but I truly needed the job. I was so broke that putting money in the parking meter was a hardship and I went directly into my audition.

The game was busy and I was told to go in on stick. Everybody was looking at me, pit staff and players alike. Then a players started initially to exclaim about the aberration of a women dealing the game. People called me misfortune and jeered as I started to maneuver the dice with the awful awkward shaking slowness that each wannabe craps dealer exhibits the very first time on a live game. A few players took down their bets. I'd later learn that players often stop betting when a dealer, male or female, is auditioning. Misfortune you know. But that was fine. I centered on dealing, doing what I was taught. I moved the dice with a painful not enough style, navigating the pass line bets and don't pass bets and crossing a crowd of field bets thick as cow pies within an overused pasture.

I acquired the job and started the following day. My pit boss, Tony, had a private conversation with me about being the only woman in the pit and he didn't want any problems. Apparently this meant I was a challenge, but I told him there wouldn't be any problems.

I proceeded over the following month or two to master to become a competent dealer. As a female, there is lots of pressure to prove myself capable. Although most of my fellow dealers were nice, some even becoming my friends, there is an underlying animosity toward my presence from the pit boss and boxmen. I was likely to fail. So I paid attention on game and, at all times, I tried to become a better dealer than everyone else. After all, dealing craps is not some sort of lumberjack chainsaw juggling contest. Men and women can get it done equally well.

The reaction among the other dealers and bosses to my presence was mixed. All the dealers were positive although they collectively asked me if I was married. They were disappointed when I said that I lived with my boyfriend. Overall, my fellow dealers were thinking about my addition to the staff because it meant they may take days off.

One boxman particularly, Jim, was earliest pens school and hostile to my presence. Jim called me a "skirt" so I called him "old." Casinos are very law of the jungle places and biting back when you get bit brings you respect. Jim sweetened up from then on presumably while he didn't like having mean things believed to him. And having a 23-year-old woman call you old is unpleasant for just about any man.

Eventually, Jim turned out to be very protective of me. Unfortunately, his old school style often meant that he would kick a person from the casino if you are too flirtatious with me. Still it had been sweet, and I acquired over his initial discrimination mostly while he was a spear-waving demon to the male dealers. I had had it relatively easy.