What's It Like Working In A Casino
What it’s like working in secondhand smoke.
- What's It Like Working In A Casino Slot Machines
- What's It Like Working In A Casino Slots
- What's It Like Working In A Casino Slot
- What Is It Like Working In A Casino
What's It Like Working In A Casino Slot Machines
- What it’s like working in secondhand smoke. Terrie is a native of Las Vegas who began dealing blackjack at casinos in 1979. Little was known about secondhand smoke then. She loved the excitement of working in a casino—the celebrities, the thrill of the game—but she hated the smoke.
- Exciting: There is always lots going on in a casino. There is gambling, cocktails, music, screaming, shows, etc. Something exciting is always happening at every corner. Working in a casino let’s you watch all the excitement. It definitely beats staring at a computer screen.
What Does a Slot Attendant Do? Slot attendants serve as a link between a casino guest and the casino’s management. Each attendant looks after a number of slot machines, ensuring their proper functioning. The attendant also ensures the safety and comfort of the slot players. In some casinos, slot attendants pay. Casino work is not glamorous. All those commercials on TV showing young, attractive people throwing back their heads in ecstasy as they clink champagne glasses and throw dice across the card tables are lies. In reality, the people who frequent casinos are rather unattractive, are loud, surly and very poor losers.
Terrie is a native of Las Vegas who began dealing blackjack at casinos in 1979. Little was known about secondhand smoke then. She loved the excitement of working in a casino—the celebrities, the thrill of the game—but she hated the smoke. Terrie tried to get some relief, like designating her table as non-smoking, but the casino management denied her and began a pattern of harassment that many women working in casinos face when they complain about working conditions. Terrie filed a complaint with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH came to screen staff for secondhand smoke exposure with masks and urinalysis, but she wasn’t allowed to participate as she was on suspension.
And then, once she was back on the floor, she was fired.
Terrie explains: “A customer lit up at my table and blew a large cloud of smoke right in my face. I didn’t want to breathe it in, so I blew the smoke away from my face. The woman loudly complained, stood, and yelled, ‘You blew my smoke at me!’ The pit boss came over and I was fired after 26 years of service.” Terrie was unemployed for over a year because of her whistle-blower status. She says, “I tried to get other work. Despite knowing I was putting myself at serious risk, I went back to work in a casino.”
NIOSH report shows toxins in the air.
The NIOSH report was released in May 2009, showing high levels of toxins in the air where casino dealers worked. Most casinos have not changed their smoking policies. At least four people who participated in the NIOSH report screenings have since died from heart disease or cancer. Terrie has suffered severe health problems from secondhand smoke exposure, including heart attack, stroke, and most recently, cancer.
Terrie was extraordinarily brave in coming forward to fight for smokefree air in casinos, and she continues her struggle to make it illegal for any employees to suffer the detrimental effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, no matter what their occupation.
Read more about secondhand smoke in gaming facilities.
How You Can Help
Even one click can help us if you vote for our story on #mygivingstory. Our story is about Alecia, a casino worker like Terrie. You can read and vote up until December 7th. Read and vote!
Support the ANR Foundation with a gift in Terrie’s honor.
Use your voice to help us educate those in smoky places like Las Vegas! Use one of our comment cards every time you visit a smoky casino to let management know that your visit was ruined by secondhand smoke.
WHATTHE CASINOS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW
Some things the casinos love to tell players (like who hitthe jackpot on their slot machines). But other things they would rather not say(“don’t ask, don’t tell”). What are their secrets?
Single deck blackjack
Wow!Las Vegas casinos are bringing back those good ole single deck blackjack games.They even advertise them on their marquees. In fact you’ll see those gamespacked with players because they know that single deck games have historicallyoffered blackjack players better odds.
Wellhere’s the rest of the story. Unfortunately, those single deck games have onetiny rule change – they pay 6 to 5 on a blackjack.No big deal, you say? How about an 8-foldincrease in the casino’s advantage! That is a big deal.
Howcan that be? Normally the casinos pay 3 to 2 or 7 ½ to 5 for a blackjack. Thismeans if you bet $5 and get a blackjack you’ll get paid $7.50 (assuming thedealer doesn’t have blackjack). But in a 6 to 5 blackjack game, your blackjackwill get you $6, a buck and a half less. And you’ll get short-changed on yourblackjacks about once in every 21 hands or about 4 times every hour on average.This adds about 1.4% to the house edge and makes this game far worse for abasic strategy player than a standard single or multi-deck blackjack game.Shame on the casinos for not telling players this!
ContinuousShuffling Machines, known as CSM’s, are those new shuffling machines being usedon some blackjack tables. But don’t confuse a CSM with an automatic shuffler,which has been around for awhile. With the latter, the 6 (or 8) decks of cardsare shuffled while the dealer uses another 6 (or 8) decks to deal the game.When the shuffle occurs, the dealer puts the just used 6/8 decks of cards intothe shuffler and places the just shuffled 6/8 decks of cards into the dealingshoe. The automatic shuffler simply saves on down time and doesn’t changeanything else about the game.
Buta CSM is different. There is only a single stack of 4 or 5 decks of cards inthe CSM. After every round or two the discards are placed back into the CSMwhere they are “randomly mixed” with the other cards. It’s a continuous gamewhere the cards go around and around.
ACSM has a dramatic effect on card counters because the unplayed cardsconsistently maintain the same ratio of high and low high cards (counters varytheir bets when the latter gets unbalanced). In fact the main reason that CSM’swere developed were to thwart card counters.
Two Decks or Six Decks?
Youglance at the blackjack table and see a dealer with 2 decks of cards in herhand, manually pitching the cards to players. So you take a seat at what firstappears to be a good 2-deck blackjack game. Right?Not always.
Somecasinos in their paranoia over card counters have implemented the fake 2-deckblackjack game. Here’s how this secret works. The game is actually a 6 to 8deck game. After the cards are shuffled the dealer picks off 2-decks and dealsthe game with them. So what appears to be a double deck game is not really a doubledeck game. Ain’t that something?
Join our Player's Club, use our free Player's Card whenyou play the machines, and you'll earn cash back and comps galore. But notevery machine. You see, if you happen to play video poker you may be earningpoints at a lower rate than slot players.In fact in many casinos it takes twice the coin-in to earn a point. Andif you always play video poker machines that have good paytables (or even ifyou get lucky and win a lot of jackpots on any VP machine and/or play only onpromotion days), the casino might pull your player's card so you can’t earncashback or comps and/or they might take you off their list for valuable mailoffers, including bounce-back. They might even bar you from playing in their casinoat all. And just to be sure they might even downgrade the paytable or points onevery one of their high-paying video poker machines and not tell anyone aboutit. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
You’veprobably seen these electronic displays on roulette tables. The deviceautomatically records the last 20 or so winning roulette numbers for everyoneto see. It seems as if the casinos are doing you a favor to help you find thoseoverdue numbers (or maybe certain numbers that are hitting more often).
Guesswhat? That device has as much chance to help you find winning roulette numbersas a crystal ball does.The rouletteball doesn’t have a memory and it doesn’t know or care what numbers just hit.The only one profiting from that that device is the company that manufacturedit and the casinos for not telling you it’s worthless.
What's It Like Working In A Casino Slots
Crapless or Never-Ever Craps
Casinoslove to advertise this game. The come-on is that you can’t lose on the come-outroll! If one of the craps numbers – either the 2, 3 or 12 - is rolled on thecome-out they become the shooters point with a fairly large winning payoff.What a deal for the craps player. Or is it?
Itturns out that even though you can’t lose on the come out roll, the 2, 3 and 12are tough point numbers to hit. If you do the math a crapshooter faces a 5.4%house edge on the pass line (no odds) compared to a standard game. That’s abouta four-fold increase in house edge compared to betting the pass line in astandard game So even though the advertising says, “you can’t lose on the comeout roll”, trust me you will lose more in this game in the long run.
What's It Like Working In A Casino Slot
Formany unsuspecting players, this is an example of a good game gone bad. WhenThree Card Poker was first introduced into the casinos by it’s developer, DerekWebb, it paid 4-1 for flushes on the pair plus wager. This made the casino’sedge 2.32%, not bad for a new game. In fact of the three poker based tablegames – Let It Ride, Pai Gow Poker, and Three Card Poker – Three Card Poker wasbest.
Nowadaysthings have changed. A new company owns the game, casinos are under pressure toincrease profits on table games, and walla without much fan fare the payoff fora flush on the pair plus wager was quietly reduced from 4-1 to 3-1. Most playersnever noticed the change. But I did.AndI’m here to tell you that this change in payoff boosted the house edgethree-fold (up to 7.28%). Also, the ante/play bonus payouts for straightflushes and three-of-a-kinds were also shorted. Uggghhh.
Let It Ride Bonus
Thelure of Let It Ride is the promise of a big jackpot for a small bet. It evensays so right on the felt - a 1,000-1 payoff if you hit a royal flush. Buthere’s the rest of the story.
Itturns out if you bet too much you won’t get the full 1,000-1 payoff. How canthey do this? Easy, just read the fine print where they talk about “aggregatelimit.”This means the casinos limit thetotal amount that they will pay on a winning wager. Suppose this limit is $15,000.If you were to bet $5 on each betting spot and hit a royal flush you’d get paid$5,000 for each wager or a total of $15,000. But if you bet $10 on each spot,you’d expect to be paid $30,000 (just like it says on the layout) but you’llonly get paid the “aggregate limit” of $15,000. Interesting.
Yousee those fancy marquees above certain slot carousals touting “99% Payback”.What they don’t tell you, unless you read the fine print, is that thesemachines pay “up to 99%.” That “up to” means that you don’t know which machineor how many machines for that matter have been programmed to pay the advertised99% payback (or return). Worse is you don’t know what the other machines in thecarousel are programmed to pay out. Good luck.
What Is It Like Working In A Casino
Even Money
Geta blackjack when the dealer shows an ace face card and the casinos will gladlypay you even money on your bet beforethe dealer checks her hole card.That’sright nice of them to do this and the vast majority of blackjack players gladlytake the even money. In fact most table game supervisors and dealers will touteven money “as the best bet in the casino”. But here’s what they forget to tellyou. In the long run you will win about4% less on your blackjack hands every time you take even money. In otherwords ‘even money’ is one of the worst plays you can make in blackjack (unlessyou are card counting). In 32 years of playing blackjack, I have yet to hear acasino employee tell a player this. Enough said.
Insome casinos the listed payoffs on the felt for bets in the center of thelayout use the word “for” instead of “to” (like “5 for 1”). To the unwary itlooks like the casinos are going to pay you 5 chips for the one youwagered.Ugh, ugh. Whenever you see theword “for” listed on a payoff it means the player will win 5 chips includingthe original one chip wagered. In other words “5 for 1” is the
Betting Systems
Casinoslove players who think they have a betting system to beat them. In fact, if youare willing to wager a sizeable chunk of cash using a betting system give thema call. They’ll come running to pick you up with a limo, put you up in a firstclass suite (comped of course), and wine and dine you as long as you play yoursystem in their casino.
Arethe casino bosses worried that maybe this sucker (oops, I mean player) willbreak their bank?Hardly. Casinos arebuilt on math not luck, and because they have the math on their side they can’tlose in the long run. Betting systems were invented hundreds of years ago. Theydidn’t work back then and they don’t work today. But the casinos prefer not totell the system player this. Now you know why.
Nowthat you’ve finished reading this article, you know a lot about what they don’twant you to know. Use this information wisely. Until next month, play smart andstay positive.
HenryTamburin is one of America’s most knowledgeable and popular casino gamblingwriters. For a free subscription to his monthly Blackjack Insider e-Newsletter or to read the latest issue visit www.bjinsider.com.For a free copy of Tamburin’s CasinoGambling Catalog featuring discounted, best-selling products for casinoplayers call toll free 1-888-353-3234 or write to: RSU, PO Box 19727,Greensboro, NC 27419.