Richard - Dealer?

A dealer I like who gives good pen and sometimes flashes the burn cards made a mistake last trip. He/she delt out the cut card, but in all the excitement of the play that was going on, forgot. He/she kept dealing down the deck. Then later at the start of another round he/she ran out of cards and quickly scooped up the cards that were out and started shuffling. What will happen to this dealer? I can see if we would have had bets out when this happened it could have been real bad. What would they have done if we would of had bets out? Thanks for any help.

Cut Card indicates when its time to shuffle, I would expect nothing more then a verbal reminder from there supervisor. Delt down to the last card, what a great Dealer :)

What I've seen if bets are out and they deal and run out is the dealer will shuffle the cards in the discard rack and deal out the hand. Then shuffle after that round.

At many casinos, a dealer who runs out of cards will be written up. This could be because they cut tow thin, or they ignored the cut-card. Or they even forgot to insert a cut-card in the beginning.

Obviously, different stories have different Human Resources policies, so the specifics will be implementation-dependent.

Then later at the start of another round he/she ran out of cards and quickly scooped up the cards that were out and started shuffling. What will happen to this dealer? I can see if we would have had bets out when this happened it could have been real bad.

Seeing Doubles,

Why was the dealer dealing the cards if the players had not yet bet?

Dog Hand

Should have stated better. No bets had been made on the cards the players had seen. No doubling, no splitting, ect. I think of the blind starting bet like a buy-in, a "this spot is in play". He delt the first to spots one card and ran out. Sorry for not wording this better. Also thanks for the posts. I was not sure how bad this was, I'm hoping to see this dealer again, but I'm thinking this might get them knocked down to the $5 tables.

If it were a 6 deck shoe and the dealer runs out of cards. I would call over the floorperson and he would instruct the table that all hands are dead and the hand is a misdeal. Blackjacks might get paid since they are 100 percent winners, but I've never heard of it happening. We cut a minimum of 1 1/2 decks so thats at least 3 or 4 more hands after the cut card. If I forgot to put the cut card in, I would definately notice as I close to the end. because the discard rack would be pretty full and I would simply wonder when the end is coming and look at how many cards I had left. If in fact I didn't put the cut card in, I would call over the floor and he would tell me to shuffle. As a matter of fact, even if we are only 1 hand into the shoe and I realize the cut card is not in, it would trigger a reshuffle. This DID happen to me once after I tapped in to a game, the other dealer was in such a hurry to leave he just threw the cards into the shoe, without cutting even, and left.

I actually saw this happen at the Grand in Vegas in a shoe game.

Dealer was totally burned out, had worked two consecutive shifts due to some either bad planning or unexpected illness or whatever. She was asked to stay on and she did.

It became apparent that she was having problems, in that she once stood on a 16 and paid a 17 hand, she paid a 22 hand as though it had 21, etc. No one said anything, the "eye in the sky" people were also apparently burned out and the pit crew didn't notice either. All I did was to make sure I knew my total and the dealer's total so that I could correct mistakes such as my 7 card 20 vs her 6 card 19 she called a "push", etc...

On one specific hand, with 5 of 7 table slots in play, she dealt everyone's first card, and hers, then another pass around the table saw her second card turn up plain yellow (the cut/shuffle card). She seemed to ignore it, turned it over, and went to the player at first base with her dealer up card a piece of yellow plastic. Unbelievably, the player at first base, who had enough alcohol in him to survive overnight in the mountains with no clothes, hit a stiff hand. As play moved to me, not knowing how to bring this up without alerting the pit crew and causing the dealer some heat, I pulled out my trusty BS card. The pit boss noticed, walked over and said "You've played here off and on for several days, and seem to know your play pretty well, why are you looking at that card?" (He too did not notice that cut card as the dealer's up card yet). There was little I could say but "I didn't know what to do with a soft-16 vs a blank up card." He looked down, sputtered, and they voided the entire deal, even after the drunk had bet and busted. :)

The worn-out dealer was relieved pretty quickly, no idea what happened to her after that. Seems to me that she cost the casino some money as everyone corrects an incorrect payout if it is in the house's favor by error, but not if it is in the player's favor. But she also stayed on due to a dealer shortage, so it is hard to see how to blame her as the sole cause of the problem.

Back to the BS question, what do you do with a soft-16 vs a blank card? Double, hit or stand? :)

I was _so_ tempted to double, just for fun, but decided no, they will probably take the yellow cut card, pull another from the shoe, and there would be a good chance it would be a 10 as the count was fairly plus.

One of those truly strange events that you will probably encounter if you play long enough...

I have also seen one hand where the dealer hit the cut card, put it aside, and backed up one player too many and gave him a 3rd card that busted him. The player had a 10/6, the unsolicited 3rd card was a 10, of course the player tried to give back the 6, and 10 minutes of wasted time later the deal was voided and we started over.

This was good news to me as it apparently suggests that the eye in the sky doesn't tape everything going on. IE they didn't have the 3rd card (10) on the tape and could not prove/disprove anything. I wasn't going to say a word although as a counter I knew _exactly_ what had happened (which card came first) since I was counting around the table doing "twosies" as the second card was dealt. No point in really pissing someone off, you never know what will happen later.

Often times, the camera isn't still, it moves back and forth. I understand in some Vegas casinos, most of the "bubbles" don't even have cameras in them. In the casino I work, at least, every inch of the casino is video taped. It may not be watched, but every tape is saved for 14 days in an archive. Any time there is a problem the surveilance usually needs time to find the right VCR and find the right spot on the tape and review the situation and make a decision based on what they see.

The dealer in your situation would most likely just go on break, or maybe, the shift manager will ask her if she wants to go home. I doubt she got in any serious trouble. These mistakes, while seem ridiculous and stupid to make, are actually something that can easily happen. Blackjack is the most boring and monotonous game to deal. You hear the same bitching from the same people for the same reasons day in and day out. It very easy to get fatigued and brain dead on the game. A 20 minute break every hour may seem like a lot, and it just may be, but, as a dealer, you KNOW when that hour is up and by the end of a 10 hour day, you can feel the burnout.

I'm not hard on dealers that make mistakes. I even occasionally mis-total my own hand and feel foolish waving off another card thinking I have 21 when I have 20. Doesn't happen often, but it happens. I have seen problems with the video often enough however. IE the tired dealer I mentioned had to resort to the video several times, as she would hit the player, say he busted, grab his cards and chips, only to hear "wait a minute, I only had 20, not 22. By then the cards are in the discard tray, and they are easy enough to get back, but the chips are in the chip tray and players see this as a way of making extra money by claiming they had bet more than they really had. I stay out of those things although I am always almost certain of who is betting what as just a part of paying attention to the game. But I'd prefer to not become known as "too observant" for obvious reasons.

Only complaint I had (but didn't voice) was that the mistakes cost us a _lot_ of time and time is playing time/money of course. Playing with the cut card was pretty funny. Arguing about "I had a 25 $ bet out, no I think you only had your usual 10 $ flat bet out" was a bit tedious. I was glad to see that player leave in a huff complaining about a dealer that couldn't count, when he was slowing the game down with his mis-stated bet nonsense.

I'm not hard on dealers that make mistakes. I even occasionally mis-total my own hand and feel foolish waving off another card thinking I have 21 when I have 20. Doesn't happen often, but it happens.

gorilla player,

So, just how often do you hit your 20's? ;-)

Dog Hand

I have no idea. :) Obviously something about a "soft hand" but what I had on my mind is beyond me. Blame it on age = 56 I guess. I'd guess I was thinking about the case where I had an ace, and counting it as 11 gave me 22, but I thought 21. So I waved off the hit and stood with a great 12.

Knowing lady luck, I probably won the hand too. As stupid as it looked. :)