Who Is a Dealer In Poker? What Are His Roles And Responsibilities?

Who's a dealer? What's his role in Poker?

The role of a dealer is to distribute the cards on the Poker table and handle the things around the table.

A casino must hire the staff to manage the Poker games. These casinos generally pay a very low salary to these dealers at a minimum wage.

However, that's not all that a dealer earns. He gets tips from the players who get the deals done efficiently

In some countries like Sweden, these things do not take place. As the casinos are owned by the state the dealers don't accept any tips from the players as the rule stands. These rules are followed very strictly in Sweden.

How To Apply For The Role?

To get a job at a casino without prior experience, a person has to go through a 4-6 week training program. This program is lengthy and tough. The dealers have to sit for long hours at a Casino. Sometimes even working on holidays.

Dealers can also be hired on a tournament basis, which is on a temporary note and a contractual basis. However, the committee or the casino doesn't pay for the basic needs of the dealers. They have to take care of their expenses.

Mechanics Of Dealing

Shuffling

The cards are shuffled as prescribed by the casinos. The dealer then places the cards randomly, this is called scrambling or washing the cards. The cards are collected into a deck. Professional dealers keep the cards very low while shuffling.

American-style dealing

In the American Style of dealing, the deck is held in one hand, in this the dealer uses the thumb to slide the deck towards their pitching hand. In this dealing it is very crucial that the dealer distributes the cards in such a way that the players are not able to see the cards.

European-style dealing

In European-style dealing the card is held at the top of the hand, the card is then pushed towards the top of the deck in front of the table surface, which the dealer hands over the cards to the players.

Burning and turning

In this dealing the top card of the deck is either burned or discarded, with the reason being the card visible to the players in the previous betting round, this allows the players to cheat and take an unfair advantage.

While burning the cards are to be kept at a low level so that the dealer does not flash or expose the discarded cards to the players.

Responsibilities during a hand

Dealers control all the action on the table. This includes verbally announcing the activities of the players to the table.

Dealers must manage the whole pot, the dealers need to verify the rounds and amount of bets placed by the player, collect folded hands, they need to read the hands of the players to decide the winner of the round.