How to Build Confidence in Your Dealing Skills

My name is Heather Ferris and I will be your host for today. On today's livestream we will be discussing how to build confidence in your dealing skills. Now if you have any questions, comments or suggestions please put it in the chat. I will answer your questions at the end of the video.

If you are brand new at this channel and this is your first time here. Hello! My name is Heather Ferris and I am the founder of Vegas Aces. I am also the adjunct professor at UNLV, a content creator, and a consultant. Plus I have been in the casino industry for over 15 years. I created Vegas Aces to help people learn how to play and deal casino table games. As a way to give back to our community we offer a free dealing trade school where we help place dealers at no cost. Now on with the show.

Building Confidence Through Practice

Okay so welcome! Now this idea came from Deb and John. Thank you guys very much for this idea. How do you build confidence in your dealing skills? Well the first way to do it is practice, muscle memory. A lot of hours of at home practice. So remember when you are at home practicing, go slow at first. Make sure you get it right. Make sure you are doing the motions correctly. Make sure your hands are in the correct placement. Make sure your fingers are in the correct placement. Make sure you are getting it right every single time. Then just keep doing it over and over and over again. Eventually speed will come with practice. Muscle memory is pretty big. If you don’t have to think about it you don't have to be nervous about it. If you are nervous you are obviously you are thinking about something. You are focused about something else. If you have those muscle memory skills in place from hours of at home practice, you will just think about it and you will do it correctly. It will be because of those hours of at home practice. If you don’t have that under your belt, and you go in an audition and you are really nervous and you are thinking about -- you are stressed out, and you know I have these people watching me. That is when you are going to mess up. That is when you are going to make mistakes. That is when the cards are going to go flying. So muscle memory is very important.

Now what do you do if you want to gain confidence -- oh before we forget, before we go on to the next part, if there are viewers out there that are watching this and you like this video and you want to support Vegas Aces then please remember to tip your dealer. Now you can with Super Chat. Super Chat is a way YouTube allows you to show your appreciation by tipping me any amount you want. Go ahead, give it a try! Or show your support by becoming a member of our Patreon page. We have several different levels and rewards to choose from. Any membership lever counts, even a dollar. Please join today. And remember if you have any comments, questions or suggestions please put them in the chat and I will go through all of those at the end of this video.

Practice Applying by Applying Often

Now back to our content. So next up is what do you do if you want to build confidence for the audition? A lot of people are nervous when they are at the audition. So how do you build confidence for the audition? You can’t do that without home practice right? Absolutely correct! So the way you build confidence when you are going on an audition is to do the top 10 list. Make a top 10 list. List 10 casinos that you want to go and apply for. Figure out what you want to do. So No. 1 would be the casino that you want to work at the most. No. 10 would be the casino you want to work at the least. Put all of those casinos in order from one to 10. Then start off with casino no. 10. Go and apply. Put your application in on-line. Then after your application is in, arrive at the pit wearing your salt and peppers. Your black and whites, ready for an audition. Go in and ask for the casino manager. They are probably going to say he is not available. So ask, “Can I please speak to the shift manager?” They will be like what do you want to talk to them about? And you say, “I really want to work here, I put in my application. I was hoping I could talk with him. I was hoping I could set up a date for an audition.” Usually they will either say okay, come back Friday night at 8 p.m. we can do the audition. Or they will be like, okay you’re in your salt and peppers you can audition right now. And they will throw you on a live game and have you audition right then and there. So do that! Starting at no. 10 which is the casino you want to work at the least, and do that for every single casino on the list. So that way, by the time you get to no. 1 you’ve made all of your mistakes. You’ve had all of your problems. You’ve had all of your screw ups. You have done all of your embarrassing moments. You’ve done all that. Now you know what you are doing. You’re ready! You have done this a thousand times. You are good to go. When you get to that casino that you want to work at the most you are going to ace that audition. So, that’s how you build confidence for your audition.

Work on Your Weaknesses

So we talked about how to build confidence by practicing at home. We talked about how to build confidence with the audition -- when going on an audition. How do you build confidence just in general? When I say build confidence -- like what do you do to build confidence? So the first thing you do -- Pip says Hi you guys! The first thing you do is write down what kind of confidence you want to gain. So if you are weak on roulette, if you are weak on craps, if your math skills are weak, it’s going to be different for everybody. Write down what you don’t feel confident in, write down what you want to gain confidence in. This will help you really focus on it. That will assist you on step no.2 which is to make an action plan and set small and measurable goals.

So, thank you very much for the Super Chat Joey. Really do appreciate it. Pip will get her two treats right now. Thank you very much.

Again, you want to set small and measurable goals. So for example if you are not good with roulette and you have trouble with math -- figuring out the math of the numbers, then one of the action plans would be, I want to get better at roulette with the math. One of the small and measurable goals could be doing flashcards. I could try to get all of these done. Go through one batch of flash cards without missing any of them. That is a way you can make a small and measurable goal to get better. Now, if you want -- if you need flash cards, remember Vegas-Aces.com has a lot of resources that will help you learn how to deal. Including flashcards, we have roulette flashcards, we have blackjack flashcards, poker flashcards. Pip sees herself. If you want any flashcards we have some on the website. That should help. Another thing, if you are not sure, if you are not confident maybe you need more information. If you are not confident with the game. Maybe you don’t know the game very well. That is why you are not confident. So gain information, and building up your knowledge of the game will help gain confidence in that. Of course, practice! Stay positive. Stay optimistic. And look for mentors. We are going to talk about it shortly.

Now remember if you guys have any questions, comments, suggestions, anything like that please put it in the chat and we will go through it at the end of the video.

Okay. So again, questions, comments in the chat let me know. What is another way to build confidence in your dealing skills? Again, and I can’t say this enough, practice, practice, practice, practice. If you do it 100 times you are going to be very confident. If you have only done it like two time, three times, you are not going to be very confident. So doing it over and over and over again. It really helps.

Thank you domestic for the Super Chat, I really do appreciate it. Pip does get a couple treats. I know Pip appreciates it as well. So two treats for Pip. Thank you very much.

Remember there are a lot of -- when people practice they are like, “Well I can only practice it a certain time.” No you can practice like -- well except when you are sleeping you can practice 24 a day. When you are at work, while you are at break you can go practice on the game that you don’t feel comfortable with. So that is one way to practice. When you are going on break, instead of going on break just go to that game and ask to be shadowed on that game. If the floor supervisor says yes. You can deal the game and have an experienced dealer watch you and make sure you are doing it correctly. So that is one way to practice.

Another way, of course, at home practice. If you are out and about, if you are running errands, if you are waiting in line. Anything like that. Flashcards really help with this as well. I have a lot of at home -- like homemade flashcards that are really horrible and crappy but I can carry them in my purse. If I am out waiting in line I can just go through them really quick. It really helps with the memory. It’s one of those things if you don’t use it all the time, you lose it. So flashcards really help with that.

Now I asked you guys in social media, “What do you do to build confidence in your dealing skills?” Anthony said, “Watch and listen to seasoned dealers in big houses. Such at Caesars, MGM, Beligaio. Listen to the things they have to say and do.” That is really great advice. Find a mentor. Find a seasoned dealer. Find someone that has been in the business for 20 years and they know the game in their sleep. They could deal it in their sleep. Which is possible. Listen to what they have to say. Listen to their experience. Listen to what they have gone through. They will help a lot. So that is how you build confidence in your dealing skills. If you have any questions, comments, anything like that, speak now or forever hold your peace. We are going to go through your comments right now. Let’s see what you guys are saying. Pip wants to say HI.

Discussion

Mr.Chad - “Anyone watch from PlayStation? My first time --

Heather - That’s pretty interesting. That’s cool watching from PlayStation.

Randy - “I’ve been out for about four months now and I am terrified of coming back to the craps table.”

Heather - Yeah. The craps -- that’s another thing. That’s a very good point Randy. The craps table is a difficult game. I have people come up to me and they treat craps like blackjack. Craps is not anything close to blackjack. You can learn blackjack in a week. It takes you two years to learn craps. So craps is an extremely difficult game. There’s a lot going on. There is a lot to remember. A lot of crazy numbers. There are a lot of pay tables to memorize. So that is definitely something you want to work at home on. When you are working at home on craps, when you are practicing from home, practice your pressese, practice going across, minus a point, going with the point, going across with the point. You want to practice your pay tables. Make sure you have all your pay tables memorized. Your stick calls memorized. There are still a few things you can do to practice at home, even if you don’t have a table in front of you.

Okay let’s see what else you are saying. Good to see everyone in the chat by the way.

Nashvillan - “I remember being thrusted onto a craps table with absolutely no training. Luckily it was for entertainment only. Long story.”

Heather - Very good when it is entertainment only. That’s another thing. Thank you for reminding me. So if you -- let’s say used to deal, like what we were talking about in the previous comment. And You haven’t dealt in let’s say years, and you want to get back into dealing, what’s a really good way to practice before you do that? If you get hired at a casino party company, then you could go out and practice dealing at a casino party where there are no floor supervisors, no eye in the sky, it doesn’t matter if you clear your hands or not. It’s really laid back and everything. And you get paid while you deal, and you can practice your dealing skills while working at a casino party getting paid. So that way when you do go on an audition for the casino, at least then you’ve have been on the table for some time and you have gotten back into the habit of dealing. That would help too. That’s another way to do this without having to pay for a dealing school. Because a lot of people think they have to spend money at the dealing school because that is the only way I can be on the table. No! There’s a lot of creative things that you can do that are completely free or you get paid. It teaches you how to deal. You can practice how to deal. For example the casino party businesses. You don’t have to spend $1000 to have students teaching students.

Let’s see what else you guys are saying in the chat. Thank you again for the Super Chat. Really do appreciate it. It is good to see everyone here. Okay. Cool. So no other questions. Lots of comments. Thank you Mr. Chad. Sorry you had a hell of a week. That stinks.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you so much for joining me. It is really good to see everyone in the comments. I hope you guys are doing well. I hope you guys are staying safe. We are doing another livestream today at 3 p.m. at the Odds Must Be Crazy. We are doing another AMA with Michael Shackleford. So if you want to join us we are doing one today.

That does it for today's show. Thank you guys so much for watching. Please join us on our next livestream. We do a livestream every Monday and Thursday at 1 p.m. PST. Until then, this is Heather Ferris with Vegas Aces, reminding you that education can change the world. Have a great day you guys, stay safe.