Ever go drinking with a bunch of dealers? Well, unless you understand the language and are in the business, don't bother, it'll just confuse you at first then probably just piss you off. We were talking about players and numbers, the lifeblood of a dealer. So when I asked about their ideas and what they really believed about the business of gambling, at first I only got numbers, but numbers never lie, and translated into words are really simple but true.

The first question I asked was about winning and losing. When we tried to figure out how much we (the house) wins against the losses. Every dealer agreed, that for every ten dollars that comes across the table, we probably win around 70 to 80%, the only thing that keeps the numbers reasonable is that most of the money won by the house is small average bets, the big bettor, although fewer and farther between, really are better players and given that many have enough money to withstand the casino's streaks, actually can beat the house for a period of time, and many of the better and more experienced players have a better idea when to quit and can walk away with something more than they started with.

In comparison, the inexperienced player, which is anyone that plays less than once a week, are obviously at the mercy of the casino lights and noises and colors and being visitors to gambling rather than approaching it as a business don't stand much of a chance against people that have been designing these casinos and games for 75 years to take your money. Since these players are usually brief visitors to the city, they're also at the mercy of time working against them since the stopwatch starts when they step off the airplane and with only a matter of hours in Las Vegas, feel a need to get the most fun in the least amount of time, and since money just seems to go weather you want it to or not, if you don't control the flow of the outgoing money while being willing to take the incoming in small increments and spend it on your necessities, it will be impossible to beat the house unless you aimlessly hit a slot jackpot or are following behind a Brink's truck when they loose a few bags of unmarked money.

What beats most big players is the same thing that beats us all…time, and a few bad decisions usually due to fatigue or playing on feelings instead of sticking to the book. We also agreed, "Write your own book if you must, but stick to it in almost every situation." unless of course you can count cards and decide when it's time to split the 10's and double on the soft 13. It's one of the two reasons the casinos win so often, the fact that they set the rules they must play by, and those rules are the closest they can get to a perfect game, and they strictly adhered to in every situation. The other reason is money, which directly relates to time. They have the most of both worlds.

The reason the dealers are given a break every hour is because they've found after years that after an hour of hand after hand (averaging 350 hands an hour) mistakes are made due strictly to fatigue. Now throw in the fact that the money on the table isn't the dealers, then add the fact that they already have pre-determined how the dealer will play the game, even without those decisions to make, the dealers still make mistakes. So how can a player sitting there for hours, passionate about their own hard earned money being won or lost, make the correct decisions every time? The answer is they can't.

So does that mean that the players should take a 20-minute break every hour? We all agreed ABSOLUTELY!! The players should take a break at least once an hour, and what about the money? Well the answer to that is it's impossible to separate yourself from the passion of money, so there's really no way to play with your own money without being upset about the losses and happy about the wins. That's why you usually don't see the house sweating the wins or losses, because they know in the long run what the outcome will probably be, and unless you understand it along with them and play the game, can you truly beat them? But the fact is that not everyone would quit even if they knew where the top or the bottom of the wave was. The idea that if I bought in with $100 and the most I'd ever be up was $10, then I'd quit when I got the $10, and likewise, if I knew that I would lose the $100, I'd quit right after the buy-in. But the fact is that most people just wanna have fun and get some play for their money so they don't have to come down to the casino after dinner and be broke before they even get a little buzz from their first "free" drink at the table.

Then I asked about the players and again we all seemed to agree with the numbers. The fact is that most players really do know how to play correct, the problem is they're usually thrown in with at least one player that doesn't know how to play, and so all the percentages of players vs. houses advantage goes out the window. The answers to that are to pick the times and place you play better. Sometime try going out at 3a.m. and get your own table and see how you do against the house with your best game. And finally, get a dealer that speaks your language.

How important is it to get the "right" dealer? As far as every dealer was concerned, the right dealer can be the key to a winning or losing session. The right dealer can mean the difference between winning and losing like the right or wrong doctor can mean the difference between being sick and being healed. Some dealers will just make the game drag on, make every hand a drudgery, waste your money (and tips) and tire you out quickly by nothing more than just standing there tossing cards in total silence with no personality. It really can make the difference in winning and making those bad decisions out of fatigue and boredom and losing.

You might as well put quarters in a machine and stare at the screen. On the other hand, a good dealer can keep you interested in the game, remind you when you make a bad decision or suggest a better way to play a hand or simply just make you glad you came weather you're winning or losing just by keeping you entertained for the time you're playing. I'm not talking about telling jokes and tap dancing, but to be a helpful presence by making the people realize that you really do want to see them have fun and get their money's worth.

Ever try to make it through a bad date? The time just drags on and on, yet on a good date, the time just rushes by, and when it's over you always walk away thinking it went too fast and leaves you wanting more. Well a good dealer, when the hour's are over, and turns the table over to the next dealer will usually get moans and groans by the players not wanting to see the dealer leave. Many times I've left the table with the players asking the floor man if they would keep me on the game, and asking when I would be back. Then if the next dealer doesn't measure up to the last one, the table will be empty in a few hands. A good dealer can often make the difference in people having a good vacation or a bad one.

How many times have we gone home, and when asked how we did, usually don't say they won or lost first, but weather they had fun or didn't. Which means, in most situations, it isn't the winning or losing that loses players and empties tables, but the mere fact that people are bored, and want to be entertained. It's their weekend, or yearly vacation, they've spent hundreds of dollars and hours of time just to get here, and THEY'RE IN VEGAS BABY AND THEY WANNA HAVE FUN.

We all agreed that most people don't tip correctly, whatever that is. But the fact that some people tip only when they win, and yet by the end of the session (the time you play) you'll end up giving the dealers more money than you win, and in most cases, you'll lose money and tip the dealers anyways. Some people who know how the tips are allocated don't like to tip knowing that most casinos split the tips with all the dealers, they don't want to end up giving their tips to people they never even see, let alone dealers they don't even like. There is no way around that unless you either meet the dealer outside after work to tip them personally or just don't tip, which isn't good since you really do want to give something to that special dealer that you really had a good time with.

The way to deal with that is to tip the dealer when you or they leave the table for a break. We know that just because you win a hand for $50 doesn't mean you're going to be a winner, and when you do tip on a win, and lose at the end of the session, you don't enjoy the fact that you gave a percentage of your money away before you ever left the tables. But tipping the dealer when they leave the game tells them that you're tipping them not because you won or lost, but because you appreciated the fact that the dealer took the extra step to ensure you and the other players had fun while they were dealing the game regardless weather they win or lose.

So the bad news first. The casinos are beating the crap out of most of you, there's no way to change that since the casino business is only going to get bigger. On paper it's nothing more than a legal scam (legal in some places, still illegal in most, what does that tell you?) It's only the people that need it the least that get the biggest cut of your losses. It's only the rich people that can raise the multi-millions to build and maintain a casino nowadays that can stay in business. There's no mom and pop casinos anymore, at least not in Las Vegas, so wherever you go to gamble is like tossing a glass of water in a lake rather than sharing it with a thirsty person, but the individual workers are just that, we're just poor, thirsty, working class people and just get up every morning and go to work like everyone else. (Except for the idea that we go to a job where everyone we deal with is out drinking and partying and gambling) You can't get away from those places so just remember that the big corporations are still made up of lots of little us's.

But the good news is people are sincerely good. Most of my players are kind people, they're considerate and polite, they don't make trouble and deep down inside, they're all still just a bunch of us's. We all have the same hopes and dreams, we all want to win but we want to do it honestly, but that's not easy when you're up against the big casinos. Just keep in mind David really did beat Goliath fair and square...once.

HAVE FUN AND DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF.

-Ken Pearlman