Her third night in town we had dinner together. I found that Jean had not so much as put a nickel in a slot machine. It seems she had done the math and decided, with very few exceptions, statistically there was no way to win due to the built in advantage of the casino. Her outlook on gambling did not come as any great surprise since she is the most practical person I have ever known. I recall her telling both her sons when they were young, “If there are three urinals against a wall in the restroom, never use the one in the middle. You have twice the chance of getting splattered than if you use one at either end.”

Her main gripe with casinos, however, was not with the odds against wining but the waste of having human dealers as opposed to having the entire casino automated (remember, I said she was practical). She went on to tell me that with today’s technology human dealers are almost an anachronism. Almost every table game in the casino has its machine equivalent, 21, KENO, poker, etc. Because dealers do not have any affect on the outcome of the games they could be replaced by mechanical devices. How about a machine to throw the dice on the craps table? The dice would always go down the middle of the table, never end up on the floor, never get coughed or spit on and we would never have to wait until the player decides to throw. Why have human dealers at all when machines can do the same job as humans and do it more efficiently and a lower cost? Machines do not call in sick, take vacations or get involved in labor disputes.

Yes, her ideas are all very practical but can you see yourself rooting for a machine, “Come on mechanical arm. Make that hard four!”

How many times have you been playing BJ and thought to yourself, “For all the personality this guy has they might as well have a machine dealing.” But if you really felt that way you would be playing at a BJ machine in the slot area instead of sitting at the BJ table. Most people who gamble in a casino setting are there to enjoy themselves, considering it a form of recreation. The dealer, talkative or not, is part of that experience.

While we can become mesmerized for hours by the machine we are playing, human contact is important to us. Recently, I was in a casino and noticed several new and easy to use change machines with “out of service” signs on them. I mentioned this to the slot manager and she told me they were being removed because very few people were using them. I asked if players were using the machines that accepted paper money instead and she answered, “Not as much as we had hoped. People seem to want to use the change girls [when they are available].”

Human interaction is an important thing in our lives. You can not reason with a machine, ask it for an opinion or to reconsider an decision. Most people will trust humans more and feel more comfortable with them than they would a machine. A machine will never commiserate with you when you are deep in a losing session or be happy for you when things are going well. A machine will never tell you, “Hey, your hard eight just fell; do you want it up again?” or, “Are you sure you want to hit that 19?”

Players establish relationships with human dealers, albeit it may be a love (when winning) hate (when losing) one. Part of the excitement of the casino experience is trying to “beat the dealer” although we all know it is not really the dealer we are trying to beat. When the battle lines in the casino are drawn, the dealer, in effect, becomes the personification of the opponent, the casino. Without the dealers, gaming would be as exciting as buying flight insurance from a machine at the airport.

I vote to keep the dealers around and urge you to show your appreciation when they deserve it. After all, it might not be too long before they are on a list of extinct species.

Good luck.