Bobby's Breakroom - for gaming employee chatter + YTF appreciation. See restrictions in Post #1

As sort of a straw poll .. and essentially part of another recent Thread ..

How many Dealers put out the next Street before pulling in bets? I see this as a time saver, but I'm not sure if this is addressed in training. The soon the Players have to see the Board the quicker they will act and I don't really think a seasoned Dealer will miss action while pulling in the chips. GL

Would imagine most trainings explicitly tell you to bring bets in before dealing the next street. It's just a good thing to do, prevents the random confusing situations from doing the contrary, and it may work as a failsafe in case you miss a player still to act. For me, I rarely do it, probably on less than 1% of hands I deal. If I were to incorporate it more, I'd mainly do it in heads up pots, pots between players close together on the table, and/or pots with attentive/competent players.

Dealing a home tourney. Blinds are 1k/2k. UTG says "Bet. Bet. Bet." Then throws a 5k chip out.

What's the ruling, if anything?

Assuming this is preflop, it's a call. You can mention to the player that there's no such thing as "bet" preflop. If he's wanting to raise, then "raise" is the word. But also, if this is a friendly little home game and he wanted to make it 5k, and everybody else is fine with it, then I'd do what the players want.

Any decent trainer would strongly discourage this. I think it's debatable as to whether or not it's actually saving time. If first to act bets, they're usually going to wait for the dealer to scoop in the bets anyway so any time "saved" is now lost. Second, we're talking about a few seconds max which means you *might* get one more hand during your down and even that's not guaranteed. Most importantly, all this time saved goes out the window when you consider this habit is going to lead to way more premature turns/rivers which slows you down and will cost you some tips making all that time you've save completely moot.

Home game I think it's best to just allow to raise and teach them the proper term for next time. Casino I don't hate being more strict and considering this a call.

For me it's situation dependent.

FWIW I know of houses where the policy is "Yes do this" and I know of houses where the policy is "Do not do this"

After all these years, I am in the camp of "as long as you get it right, it does not matter." (I don't care what anyone else thinks about that, especially anyone not in the business, so save your keyboard strokes.)

Saying, "bet" preflop is an invalid declaration. He put in a 5k chip without announcing "raise", so it's a call. A player's intentions can't override the rules. How often do we see the SB at 1k/2k add a 5k chip to their 1k chip, and then seem shocked when we announce it's a call? We know they intended to raise, but they did it incorrectly. The rule is the rule.

As for saying "raise" post-flop when facing no bet, that's addressed in TDA rules. The player is required to make a bet.

mod: reminder, this is the breakroom thread.

If you're not a casino employee, post your opinions about things in some other thread. Thanks.

If you are a casino employee and think I've deleted your post unfairly, shoot me a PM so I can make a note and undelete. Thanks!

Thanks but we have a union. One whose response to me was "why don't you just be part time?"

I am very pro-union but my union specifically has done **** to help me.

As a side note .. I do encourage Dealers to leave the Antes for a Bomb Pot out in front of the Players to make sure they don't misdeal a Player not participating into the Deal. Then pull in the Antes before putting out the Board(s).

I would rule that it's a 5k 'bet' (raise). Players in PLO are constantly holding up green chips and saying 'Bet' or just assuming that waving the chip around before putting/tossing onto the felt is an obvious intention to bet the full amount. Dealers can certainly step in and get a clarification with 'education' if necessary. GL

Agree with the bomb pot procedure, I have no idea why dealers want to risk forgetting who's in or out, especially when it's more than one abstainer. Also, when I'm playing, I can't comprehend why some dealers don't stack the pot. Bomb pots are a split pot game, no different than a hi/lo variant. Stack the damn chips!

As for that 5k chip thing, I would be totally fine calling it a raise (with clarification) had the player made a physical indication like waving the chip, doing a thumbs-up, whatever. For that matter, the dealer could have interrupted when he was chanting "bet bet bet" (for whatever strange reason ) and asked if he was intending to raise. But once that chip is pushed in without uttering the word "raise", by TDA rules it's a call.

The place I work at this is a big no-no. I am fairly sure it is the pet peeve of the poker manager. So I don't do it.

That said, if it was up to me I would do it regularly. Like you mention it saves a little bit of time and most experienced dealers should be able to handle any confusion. The time savings though is miniscule. So I am kind of indifferent to it.

I have no problem with experienced dealers doing it, but I also think that any time savings is not thay much and can often be offset by confusion.

TDLR, I personally agree, but not enough to care. The room I deal in frowns upon it so I don't do it.

All of that said, if dealers are going to leave bets out and deal the next card, they should then start to bring the bets in with the player first to act so it avoids any confusion of bets. So many times I see dealers leave bets out and then collect them backwards collecting the bet of the first player to act last. It is rare, but occasionally this means the first player to act hesitates before betting.

Dealers miss bomb pot antes a lot

Some dealers don't stack bomb pots because they aren't used to dealing split pot games. Even if they're otherwise comfortable doing it, they might simply forget in the moment. Stacking makes a big difference if every hand is split pot, but once per down or less it's probably excusable to skip.

As for putting out the next card before pulling in bets, I only do it occasionally and only in cases where I know I can snatch them before players start acting on the street. This means no change to give, first couple of bets in easy reach. I'm normally all about doing anything I can to save a second or two but I don't like doing things that cause confusion or doubt about whether the pot is right.

If the bomb pot's paying for time, I think the bomb bets should be pulled in while the time bets stay out out. Pull the time bets in after all cards are dealt and then put out the flop. Even if not a time pot, I think they should still be pulled in; too much traffic otherwise which can caused flipped cards.

Dealer procedures are for the sake of surveillance and to prevent player confusion. A confused player necessitates a floor call which costs 4-5 hands. Doing it right gets out more hands per hour.

I actually respect that and I could totally see myself doing that for just the reason you stated.

That said, you are describing why it doesn't save that much time. A dealer who is good enough to leave the bets out and deal the next card without having issues is probably operating faster than the players anyway. When the dealer is operating faster than the players, it doesn't matter if he leaves the bets out or brings them in. There is no real time savings.

Have any of you actually filed an SAR? I'm doing the annoying training and it occurred to me that not only have I never filled one out, I've never even heard a fellow dealer say they have.

Nope. No SARs. No SACs. But I have mentioned Sus related actions to suits.

We had a textbook SAR situation in a room that no longer has poker that I worked in - whale gets up from the table, asks about cashing out, literally says aloud how he is going to only cash out some of the chips so he won't have to deal with getting his time wasted.

So I dutifully told my supervisor who... shrugged and said "Sounds like something he would do."

As long as I did my job, I thought I would be fine. And I never heard about it again in any way.

What are SAR and SAC?

An SAR is a suspicious activity report. A CTR is a currency transaction report. There are anti money laundering reporting requirements that casinos and all financial institutions need to follow.

I dunno what an SAC is.

Reminder : this is the breakroom thread, not a thread for non employees to ask questions in. I will move this post and the one asks it when I'm not on my phone.

Thank you. We've been getting this an awful lot lately from the same repeat offenders.

To all: This is not the "Come here to ask questions about casinos" thread. Please see Post 1.

Come on guys, asking what an abbreviation means is hardly an "offense", I didn't come here to ask a random question.

To answer my own question...

I was a fairly new dealer, hired on for 2 weeks during a tournament series. They told us at orientation that cash game players need to show their players card if they buy in for $500 or more at the table. We have no computers or even pen and paper at the table so we aren't actually recording any information, I guess we were just supposed to make sure they had one or something.

A player puts down $800 and asks for chips, so I ask him for his card. He starts going off on how terrible the room is and how bad the rules are, no way is he doing that. The player next to him has a bunch of black chips in his pocket and sells them to the guy. So by refusing to flash a players card he's now getting an SAR on his record. Or should, anyway, but I was 12 hours into my shift and too fried to spend my break trying to chase down a floor and figure the process out.