Players can sharpen skills while dealers-in-training learn

By: TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer | Thursday, November 27, 2003 9:29 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA ---- Any comers? Any comers? All right, place your bets, the bones are gonna roll.

Those bones, uh, dice come fast; the chips come faster. What's not as quick is learning all those odds and payouts.

Kerry Fisher sighs as he tries to keep up. He's got four people at his craps game, all of them dropping chips, calling out bets and expecting fast action.

The volume around the craps table keeps going up, too, with players engaged in side conversations. Fisher strains to listen to the man coaching him on how to deal with it.

And, at this school, coaching him on how to deal.

The atmosphere in the Casino Career Center on Front Street in Temecula is often like the casinos in which these students want to work. Sometimes loud, sometimes busy ---- and really fun.

Of course, the money is fake, so the pressure is a lot less.

The public is welcome to wander in during business hours if they want to sit down and play a few hands with a practicing dealer. No money changes hands, of course. It's simply a way to kill time, something a lot of moms have done while waiting for their kids to finish class at a nearby dance studio.

The school supplies dealers to the Indian casinos in Riverside and San Diego counties. Owner Raun Smith said it has produced some 500 graduates since 1998. Ninety percent have landed jobs, he said.

Jorg Tiebing, 35, is one of those graduates. A Menifee resident, he often stops by his alma mater on his way to work ---- he now has a job dealing at Barona Casino in east San Diego County.

"I love this job," Tiebing said. "Every night is different. It's not like data entry. But it can be a pretty frustrating job. There are people who hate you, hate your guts, because you take their money."

Classes, cost

The classes on running the craps games are a new feature at the school. The tables have been in only for about a month now. And coming soon to the school: roulette tables, which Smith said should be in place by the end of the year.

The school ---- which is state-certified for vocational training ---- offers three classes for eager students: one for poker and its many variations, one for craps and one that covers blackjack, pai-gow, baccarat and a few other common table games.

Courses generally run about eight weeks. New students start every Monday; the school usually has between 30 and 40 students at various stages of learning. Students plunk down about $1,500 for the blackjack and poker courses. Learning the craps games runs between $500 and $1,000, depending on the student's level of experience.

Casino officials generally declined to talk specifically about how much money a dealer can expect. They do say, however, that the job itself starts out at minimum wage. The real money is in the tips.

"You can make a comfortable living," said Larry Miranda, the table games manager at Pechanga Resort & Casino.

Learning the games

Instructor Matt Martini said it takes at least two years ---- closer to five years ---- to really become proficient at running a craps game.

"You can learn the game in six weeks, but then you have to go out and perfect it," Martini said.

And, the terms guys like Martini and his students throw around, terms like "drop cut 10." We're pretty sure it means two piles of $1 chips, with five chips in each pile. That's another part of the class: learning the jargon.

There is one hard lesson: Dealing not as easy as it looks. Sometimes hands cramp up the first couple of days after taking the classes. "These are muscles you never use," Martini said.

And then there's that part about dealing with the gamblers.

"Dice players are nowhere near as nice as card players," Martini said. "They are grumpy. They yell. And they slam things."

But hardest is the math involved, learning to quickly calculate the odds and figure out the payouts for the many bets made, particularly when it comes to craps, said Jim Paris, the director of table games at Casino Pauma.

Personality is a big part of the job. Paris says it's 80 percent of the job. Barona dealer Tiebing says its more like 99 percent.

"If somebody is losing, you have to entertain them," Tiebing said. "You have to keep them happy."

Getting the job

As realistic as the school tries to make it for the dealers, there is simply no substitute for the real thing. And the dealers' first taste of that generally comes at the audition for the job.

"It's so different when you audition," Tiebing said. "It's real players, real money. You freeze."

Auditions are the only way to land a job as a dealer ---- and they can be tough.

"Sometimes it takes four or five auditions before someone gets hired here," said Pechanga's Miranda.

These days the market is getting more flooded with dealer hopefuls. Forty open positions at the Pechanga tables mean between 300 to 400 applicants, he said.

Pechanga already has nearly 400 dealers, nearly all of whom work full-time at the casino's 85 table games.

Pauma's Paris said he'll need to find more dealers when the casino finishes its expansion next year.

Paris admits its hard to find experienced craps dealers. It helps that Casino Career Center has begun offering the classes, he said, and in fact he was the one who sold the game tables to the school.

But Paris said he's also had to start up his own in-house course. And making it tougher, he said, is the difficulty of learning craps dealing, evidenced in the number of dropouts: 65 percent to 75 percent of the students give up.

It's not a job for everybody. Smith said casinos generally run extensive background checks on the dealers they hire. And although they all have differing rules as to who will make the cut, Smith said that folks with no high school diplomas, a very bad credit history or those with a felony on their record generally don't get hired on as dealers.

Business is booming

Miranda, a Pechanga tribal member, has a bit of history with the Casino Career Center. He and his mother founded it in the mid-1990s and sold it to Hiscock in 1998. These days, he said the school "is coming along."

Hiscock, after retiring as a dermatologist in Fallbrook about five years ago, thought a career as a dealer might be kinda fun, so he headed to the Temecula vocational school for classes.

As it turns out, Miranda and his mother were selling it, so Hiscock snapped up the joint. Hiscock said the first two years were tough on the checkbook.

"We didn't know this would be profitable at first, but once we got in it, we could see it coming," Hiscock said.

It helps that Hiscock had enough capital to keep the place afloat for the first two years. Now, he said, the school is in the black.

So much so, in fact, that the owners are thinking of shopping around for a new location ---- or maybe opening up a satellite school in Palm Springs.

Since Smith and Hiscock took over the school, it has seen more than 500 graduates.

"Originally, we advertised the school, but now we get enough (students) through word of mouth," Hiscock said.

"I won't be gambling as much"

Fallbrook resident Jaime DeVera is about a month into his blackjack classes. Again the phrase comes up: it isn't as easy at it looks.

"As a player, all I am thinking about is my bet," DeVera said, "but as a dealer, I've got seven players and game protection to think about."

Game protection ---- which really means guarding the rows of chips in front of the dealer ---- is a big part of the job, and dealers have to learn techniques to keep those stacks protected at all times.

There are precise instructions to follow, and everything is done for the security cameras.

In fact, the students all chuckle at themselves as they agree that parts of the job become so second nature it ekes into their lives outside of the school.

Take, for example, the process of "clearing," a quick gesture to show overhead cameras that your hands are empty. It's a move the dealers are supposed to make whenever they accept cash or even just scratch their neck.

Now, Smith said, he catches himself doing it at the grocery store, loading bananas into his cart or paying at the checkout stand.

Bonita Armstrong said she was a nurse looking for a new career when she turned toward her love of blackjack. She has been at the school for about two months now.

"I think I can save money as a dealer," the 41-year-old Banning woman said. "I won't be gambling so much."

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2623 or tfigueroa@californian.com.