A casino dealer is a key part of the experience at a land-based casino, as they are always dressed smartly and ready to set the social tone of a table. But what if a dealer who has honed their skills on the casino floor wanted to make the switch over to the world of online casinos?
On the surface, the roles may seem much the same, but such a career switch would actually involve learning a new set of skills. Online casinos provide live dealer table games through live streams, and they are a popular feature of digital platforms. But just how different is the job compared to working in a land-based casino?
The Foundations
A dealer who’s worked on a casino floor will naturally have a deep foundation of casino games. They will know the ins and outs of rules and be experts at things like manual dexterity and game procedures.
But for someone coming from that background to a studio setting, they will be met with a new range of technical demands and challenges that would need some retraining, despite all of their existing game knowledge.
Studio vs the Floor
Modern online casinos are powered by software of leading providers such as, for example, SkillOnNet. If you check a list of SkillOnNet casinos at https://legalcasino.uk/platforms/skillonnet/, you’ll see that these platforms offer not only slots, but also a wide range of live games featuring real dealers. While playing live games, you’ll also see that the dealers feel almost right there with you, thanks to multiple cameras and varied viewing angles. But the dealers themselves are surrounded only by cameras, monitors and lighting equipment. At first glance, it might seem that working in a studio without players is far easier than dealing cards to people in a real casino, yet it comes with its own set of challenges.
Being in front of a camera doesn’t come naturally for many people, so this is an area in which a dealer would need to learn how to handle themselves. What makes this more challenging is that dealers from a land-based casino are used to talking to players, guiding them and more often than not, getting feedback, which is part of the great social aspect of a land-based environment.
That element is missing from live online games, because a dealer attempting to engage with players via a live stream could receive very limited text messages back. Even without those in-person interactions, the dealer would still have to chat away and be adept at producing monologues to make the game interesting, even if no players were engaging.
At the same time, the dealer would have to continuously watch incoming text messages in case of any questions, all while trying to be engaging with the live chat. Training for this often involves body language skills, presentation technique and voice modulation so that clarity is achieved for speaking.
Game Operation
At a land-based casino table, players put their chips down on the table, but in a live streaming studio, the dealer needs to interpret bets a different way. Players place their bets through a user interface, and all that the dealer sees is the digital information about that wager.
So instead of reading the table, they have to read a monitor showing them what bets are happening. But there’s a lot more information that they have to be aware of at the same time, like opening and closing the betting window by pressing a button.
There is also automated technology involved in live dealer online games that needs a dealer to get accustomed to. This automation for introducing the ball into a roulette wheel, rolling the dice in craps and even sometimes shuffling and dealing the cards, introduces factors that don’t exist in the land-based casino environment.
How the Training Happens
The retraining process to become a live dealer would mostly happen in a simulated studio environment. This is a big benefit of technology, because the dealer can practice as much as they need to on games, to get used to the technical side of things and executing their on-camera presentation. This can be done with automated AI players or trainers actually sitting in on the game and testing the dealer with different scenarios.
Same But Different
A dealer who’s used to handling a dozen players around a roulette table, for example, would no doubt find the live studio strangely sterile with no face-to-face interactions. It’s a major shift from reading physical cues and interacting with people to getting all of the game information delivered on a screen.
Live online casinos have modern adaptations of games like Lightning Roulette, Free Bet Blackjack, and non-traditional casino games like Pachinko, so new games would have to be learned as well. But the experience and foundation that a skilled dealer has from a land-based environment puts them in a strong position to successfully make the move to the digital world.
