Top 5 Tricks for Dealing a Better Texas Hold’Em Game

Marc Shumsker joins Vegas Aces to share his top 5 tricks for dealing a better Texas Hold'Em poker game.

Heather: Today we are joined with…

Marc: Hey I’m Marc Shumsker. I’m True Poker Dealer, you can find me on YouTube teaching people how to deal poker too.

Heather: Sweet, Cool. Thank you so much for being on we really do appreciate it.

Marc: Well thank you! I’m sporting my little mask here that will be available soon but not quite yet because of Covid which is ironic, right? Covid slows down me from being able to sell the thing that helps for Covid.

Heather: Yeah.

Marc: It is what it is.

Heather: Look out, you're keeping me safe! I’m not keeping you safe.

Marc: That’s right, hugh. Ok I have to settle the score. I can’t keep this on during this.

Heather: Marc can you tell people -- I know you said that you are having trouble with Facebook and everything but I really like that mask. Where would I go and get one if I wanted one?

Marc: This is on TeeSpring at the moment. I appreciate you asking that question. It’s set up just enough for you to find it if you look for True Poker Dealer, but I am waiting to promote this through YouTube because they have a partnership with YouTube. So as soon as they are able to get that back and running again -- it’s been on a 3 month delay. Then it will be up.

Heather: Okay.

Marc: I like it. I got myself a sample. And I appreciate you asking that.

Heather: Now True Poker Dealer you have been around ever. How many years have you been around?

Marc: I started in February of 2012. It was 1 day before my oldest son was born. That is when I released the first video.

Heather: Wow that is really cool.

Marc: Yeah interesting.

Heather: And you help people help Poker, right?

Marc: Yes I do. Poker is something that -- I mean I have dealt table games too and supervised table games as well, but that was a brief part of my career. Poker is what I focus on online. I will leave all the table game stuff to you.

Heather: How long were you a Poker dealer? Did you enjoy it?

Marc: So I worked in the industry for 10 years. I was a poker dealer, switching between table games and dealing poker and supervising table games and poker for about 2.5 years. Then I went on to be a full time floor and poker and shift manager for a time. That was for about 7 more years. And then I did a short 4 month stint at one of the major poker rooms in south Florida. It’s the Hard Rock in Hollywood for about 4 months before I went full time as an entrepreneur.

Heather: Cool.

Marc: It was 10 years total in the industry.

Heather: Again thank you so much for being here and today you are going to tell the viewers the top 5 tricks for how to deal a better Texas Hold’em game.

Marc: I have some good ones, yep.

Heather: Yeah! Thank you! I’m looking forward to it. Now shall we get started? Do you want to start off with no. 1.

Marc: I am happy to do it. I have been really excited ever since I knew I was going to be on this with you. I have been excited about this because the no. 1 tip, the first one I am going to share is something you will love. The first tip that I think will make you a better poker dealer is to learn to deal table games first. So, people don’t realize -- I did this myself, okay? It’s fine to deal poker first but it’s better to deal table games first because the mechanics are cleaner. Like learning all of the motions in poker can be lazy. It’s not house's money. So the procedure is not as precise. But learning the mechanics of learning how to deal poker from table games first...it gives you a nice little edge with your brian is already super trained for the mechanic side and when you go to poker it makes it easier to get a dealing job as a poker dealer, it makes it easier -- I mean you can do it without it. But it makes it easier, is the point.

Heather: Right. The more games you know the more valuable you are.

Marc: Absolutely! And so -- maybe you don’t know this and I assume you do because of all your experience, but poker dealers are taught to thumb cut. It’s fine for them but it’s less efficient. And there are a bunch of habits like that. Like the way that they interact with the bank. A poker dealer who’s never been a table games dealer trying to go in the tray and keep things clean is a nightmare sometimes. And it’s just a bunch of stuff like that. Especially if they go just to poker dealer school and nothing else. It’s part of why I try to like emphasize those types of skills, in terms of poker. But ultimately their table game skills at the end of the day.

Heather: Yeah that makes total sense. You do not want to thumb cut. Thumb cutting is -- someone told me one time that if they see someone thumb cutting it’s a red flag that they are cheating. I don’t really know how. I didn’t really look into it but that’s why you're not supposed to thumb cut on a normal game. So I completely agree with that.

One thing that I want to add was, I dealt poker for a very short time. Like my poker career was very short lived. I was not poker dealer material at all. So one thing that I learned though was, being a blackjack dealer, pitching the cards is completely different on a blackjack game than it is on a poker game. I got my ass chewed out because I went on a poker game and I was dealing poker and I was pitching like I was pitching like I was on a blackjack game and oh my gosh I pissed off so many people. They were not happy with me. Especially when one of the cards flipped over -- forget it!

Marc: That’s true. I totally agree with that. When it comes to -- I did learn to deal double deck and shoe first. And for double deck obviously you have to pitch and it is totally different. That is probably the one thing that you have to retrain yourself for poker. But all the other mechanics for table games are cleaner in my opinion personally. That’s a funny story. I feel bad for you -- thinking about that. It’s such a set up too. Such a set up.

Heather: I got such crap! I got such crap and they did not like me. I’m like, I think I like blackjack better than poker.

Marc: That’ll do it! Yeah. I find that table games dealers that go to poker -- they end up going to poker if they actually really enjoy the game of poker a lot. Right?

Heather: Yeah.

Marc: If you really enjoy poker it makes sense to go from table games to poker.

Heather: Yeah.

Marc: But that’s it.

Heather: Yeah. Okay so do you want to add anything else to no. 1 before we move on to no. 2?

Marc: Yeah there is one piece there...so, becoming a table game dealer first, another nice piece of that is you create a different type of friend circle that you get to hold on to. Poker dealers are poker dealers, table games dealers are a little bit different. You also get more of a feel for the casino. Like there are other little benefits there too. Just figured I’d throw it out there, because I had the notes and you know.

Heather: Awesome. Now before we go on to no. 2 if you guys are watching if you have any questions for Marc, or myself please put them in the comments. I see you guys are doing some comments in here. Thank you very much for the chat. Very fun. So if I see a question I will put it up on the screen and we will ask. Okay, let’s move on to no. 2. So what’s no. 2?

Marc: So no. 2 is as a poker dealer, you want to train yourself to think in terms of the two fundamental rules of poker. Now I do an entire video in a paid course that I have on YouTube for this. But ultimately what it means is, there’s two rules that if you think in terms of them, all of your decisions as a dealer, which there are many, become a lot easier. So rule no. 1 is card speak. Which basically means that, at any given moment the only thing that entitles the player, poker player, to win a hand are their cards. So they must be protected and they must be carefully used, is the way that I will say it. And as the dealer you want to think in terms of that rule, when you are making your decisions at the table. The other one that goes along with it -- all poker rules are pretty much built on these by the way. The other one is one player per hand. If you ever see something that potentially could violate one player per hand as a dealer you need to use that instinct that you develop in order to speak up. And a lot of people don’t think in terms of these rules right off the bat. And what happens is they get their training and they are in there, and they are making change for a $5 chip with 5 $1 chips. They are going through the motions that they think dealing poker is. It seems like Heater might be gone for a second, we will see if she comes back. They are going through the motions that they think that poker is…

Heather: I’m here I just put you up on the screen…

Marc: Thinking in terms of one player per hand can make a big difference. For example: if you’re at the table and you have one player that seemingly is innocently showing someone else their cards it’s not in the hand, you might think to yourself it’s not that big of deal. But if you’re thinking in terms of one player per hand, you realize that now the person ?? (10:00) -- off the table someone else, they might actually speak up. They might say something. They might do something that would ultimately affect the hand. So as a dealer that’s where you decide to step in. Even if you have never been trained that.

So card speak - one player per hand. Learn the game in terms of those things and it makes your life a lot easier when you have to make decisions for the little things that don’t necessarily require a supervisor.

Heather: Very Cool. Awesome. Okay so we got no. 1 and no. 2 done. Let’s go to the comments and see you guys have any questions for Marc or myself. Which we do.

Q: Joey says: Are tokes better on table games than in poker because of the amount of foot traffic or the like?

Marc: So we both have answers to that. I guess I’m going to go first here. Listen, there’s a huge variety when it comes to both table games and poker in my experience. Now specifically speaking about poker, you can do really well. On my channel I sometimes talk about the actual numbers but it’s kinda frowned upon in the industry so I’m not going to do it right here. Basically some people in some rooms can do really well in poker. I know that craps dealers especially can do phenomenally well. There’s a lot of competition. My personal opinion is poker is slightly more depending on where you are though. But I might be totally wrong about that. They are both good at the worst.

Heather: It goes down to my favorite mantra, every casino is different. So it really just depends on the casino. You can have dealers who work at let’s say the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and they are making a $100,000 a year and Poker dealers working at one of the Station Casinos making like $30,000 or $40,000. You can also have dealers working at downtown casinos making $20 a day in tokes and you can have a poker dealer working at Mandalay Bay making $75,000 a year. It really just depends on the casino.

Marc: Yeah you have way more experience in Vegas than I do. For me I find it’s a little bit regional too. Like, forget about poker and table games, they both go up in certain locations depending on the amount of people that are there and all that type of stuff. But they are also very different types of lifes, in a lot of way. I think that table games is probably less of a toll on the body. Still a toll. I think poker can be a lot more, even though you’re sitting. But it’s not what you’re asking. I’m just throwing that out there.

Heather: Another thing with tokes is -- again it depends on the location. There are some locations -- like you don’t have to be in Las Vegas to make good tokes. It amazes me that there are some casinos in Louisiana or Main or Detroit where they are making $60,000, $70,000 a year. You don’t have to be in Las Vegas to make those numbers.

Marc: Yeah poker in Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, Texas now, Vegas in a lot of cases too, California, they can all hit that much especially if you are full time. But it also -- each poker dealer is different. Like you keep your own almost every single time. There can be two dealers at the exact same property that have very different results based on a lot of factors.

Heather: Exactly. Yep. Personality being one of them. If one of them is a grump.

Marc: Absolutely!

Heather: They are definitely will not make as much money. If you guys have any questions about tokes, please feel free to go to my website vegas-aces.com. We moved our toke board. We had a world toke board up on resources page. We moved that to the articles page under tokes. So you can find that on our articles page under tokes for the world toke board. We have another question.

Q: Have either of you dealt a bad beat jackpot hand? (14:21)

Marc: I have dealt one one time. Now a days there’s more high hands in poker then bad beat jackpots. But for me it was 2007 or 2008 at my first casino that I worked at and I think it was for about $10,000. It was aces full of jacks was beaten by quad 4’s I think.

Heather: Oh man.

Marc: When that happens everything stops.

All the paperwork starts coming and all the reviews start coming in. But man it was really cool. I got tipped more on that hand than I have ever been tipped before in a poker hand. You deal out $10,000 people are appreciative.

Heather: Yeah that’s for sure! Very good point. Okay so before we go on to no. 3 I just want to remind you guys…

Okay let’s get into no. 3. What is no. 3?

Marc: No. 3. I appreciate you throwing it back. So No. 3 to be a better poker dealer is to prioritize properly. What I mean by that is, there are certain things as a dealer that are more important in poker than other things. Following the action is something that not every dealer realizes needs to be prioritized above everything else. Following the action is something that is easy to get lazy about and not do. What I really mean is…whoever's turn it is – as a poker dealer you want to have your eyes at least enough so you can tell exactly what’s happening on their hands, chips and cards. At any given time when it’s somebody's turn. If it’s not your turn then you can look around and focus on other things but if it is somebody's turn you need to have your eyes there, so that if they do something questionable you know for sure. If everybody else at the table thinks that they checked, you know for sure. Because premature cards and mistakes where the actions skips -- somebody's attention detriment to the game.

On top of that, if a supervisor comes to the table for something complicated such as a floor call. If you don’t know what actually happened you're making it really hard for yourself, the players at the table and the supervisor. Keeping your focus on the player's turn it is and training yourself to do that first, is super important. The only other thing that is up on that same level of importance would be making sure that the bets are correct. The dollars are going to the pot and are always correct. That each person has the correct cards. Some things like that, that are very fundamental. But follow the action! That’s absolutely something that will make you a better dealer. I get questions on how to do that all the time. It takes effort -- practice. You got to be able to follow the action while you are making change. You used to be able to do that while other stuff is going on. But it is doable.

Heather: Yeah. Cool. So let’s do a quick question. If you have any questions for Marc or myself please feel free to ask and then after we do the question we will go onto no. 4.

Q: So the question is...what game requires the most brain power? Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Three card poker, texas Hold’em? What do you think?

Marc: I gotta go with regular poker room Texas Hold’em, just because I have dealt Ultimate, I’ve dealt Three Card. I have never done it with a six card bonus...I think that is what it is. Or the five card bonus. But Texas Hold’em -- your basically sometimes babysitting 9 players at once at the table who all have aggressive personalities. Remember, in a poker room where people are playing against each other not against you, every single person there is comfortable with confrontation. That’s part of what makes them feel like they can walk into that room. There is a lot going on.

The game itself isn’t too bad in some ways but some of the rules are really tricky and complicated. Knowing what happens if somebody bets 75 and then someone else puts out without saying anything and bet 105. There are a lot of details that come into it. The procedures for Ultimate and 3 Card are relatively straight forward in comparison too. There is a lot of judgement that you actually have to use as a dealer in poker whereas you don’t have to do some of that in table games. I would say Texas Hold’em is a bit harder.

Heather: Okay. Cool. So for that -- for poker -- for table games I would have to say probably craps. Craps is the hardest. Okay so.

Marc: Yeah that is true.

Heather: Yeah so hard. That’s good that we have both of them. One for poker and one for table games. So no more questions it looks like. Let’s go on to no. 4. What is no. 4?

Marc: No. 4 this is good for table games too honestly, learn how to train yourself while you are dealing. Instead of relying on other people to train you. I have had two people that learned thru True Poker Dealer recently that just went to the tables for their very first job and both of these people came to me saying like...my first couple of days were really rough. Like there is a lot of stuff that came up that I had no idea what I was supposed to do. And that is how it is unfortunately in a lot of cases. There’s so many little details that can come up and at the end of the day you're not going to know what to do.

When you first start dealing if you teach yourself to train one thing at a time for tables. Sometimes two if you can handle it. By the time you have gone through three months of training yourself with one or two things at a time. You're going to be amazing. Stuff is going to be automatic to you. Your speed is going to be quicker than it would otherwise. By teaching yourself to train yourself while you’re dealing, you're improving your own ability to make tips, you're improving your own ability to be flexible as things change.

If you ever change poker rooms, they’re going to have a different set of rules to a degree and you’ll be able to accommodate that better. It’s a much better practice to teach yourself to train yourself while you are dealing. For table games it’s no different.

Heather: Awesome! Very cool. So if you guys have any questions please feel free to ask. (Sales) So next question. Is it best to train with friends and family?

Marc: If all of them are going through training with you. If everyone is taking it seriously. Absolutely! You want to make sure that you’re training good habits. Right? You want to make sure you are finding out what you should actually know. I like training with more people. I like the fact that a lot of schools train with multiple people. You certainly don’t want people telling you, “I know for sure this is how it works, and this is what you should be doing.” And then you train that for yourself and now you have to spend 20 times as much effort untraining it. Right? So, as long as everyone is open minded and able to learn the right stuff, absolutely! The more the merrier.

Heather: Awesome! And also too, that’s how some dealers learn. And that is how they get in the industry. They have friends or they have family that are in the industry and they are like, hey I can get you a job. I can teach you a couple of things. We will get you in. It’s a normal thing.

Marc: Yeah, I see that in the comments.

Heather: Right! Do you have a set of cards and chips at home to practice with friends and family?

Marc: I have so many sets of chips at home. I imagine you do too, right?

Heather: Yeah, I have so many cards, so many chips!

Marc: Oh yeah I have a lot of cards too. My 8 year old just created a YouTube channel called li’lchiparchitect because he would sit around while daddy was working and just dump stuff out of the chips I have. And he decided to learn how to go on YouTube. He is 8 and he put up four videos recently just as a fun project this summer. It’s a different life. Having all that stuff at home, right?

Heather: I saw one of the videos, he did a good job. I am pretty impressed. He did better than my first video on YouTube.

Marc: Well I am trying to teach him everything. But I am not letting him just do whatever he wants. I gotta teach him the right -- it’s just what we are talking about! You got to teach them the right stuff. Right?

Heather: Yeah.

Marc: In order to make it engaging and all that. He is doing all his FinalCut and I’m doing a little bit of touch up. Yeah exactly!

Heather: That is really cool. Before we move on, if you guys would like any cards or chips feel free to click on the link below. I have a link to cards on amazon as well as chips on Amazon. So if you want some to practice with you could find the link.

Q: Do you think an all in button or call button is necessary for Poker room equipment?

Marc: The word necessary is a little specific there. I’m going to say not necessary but it is way better. The TDA in their most recent meeting in 2019, them being the Tournament Directors Association they are the minds of the top poker rooms. They get together every two years and discuss rules for high stake tournaments so everything is consistent and clean. They recently put out a recommended procedure to use those, because it does make everything clearer. The last thing you want in poker is for somebody to go all in saying all in but not pushing all their chips out. Or pushing one stack when it’s really more than that because they were doing it verbally and then somebody else for whatever reason didn’t realize that it wasn’t all in a then called and it was a messy situation. So those buttons make everybody's life easier if they are used properly. Which they are not that hard to use as dealers. I like them. I do recommend them to any room that’s in operation.

Heather: Awesome. I am looking forward to hearing what no. 5 is. The last one in the list.

Marc: You got it! So, the last tip I have is...be human! There are so many people that are at the poker room because they want connection. It’s an automatic way to get human interaction. There’s people that come to the poker room, it is what it is, they lose their money every single day. Right? Why are they there? They are there for something other than trying to win the money. They are there for connection. You gotta figure out who this applies to. If you can just be human. I have seen some amazing examples of dealers that know how to do this phenomenally well. Your tips got through the roof! It’s amazing to see what a difference just understanding how to -- just provide the thing that people are actually there for. What that does is phenomenal. So that’s what I say.

It took me, honestly, I was more of a robot for years in casinos. It took me probably until my last year or so working casinos to really figure that out. And when I did, it made everything -- people stopped getting on my case as well. It was hard to get on my case because I knew what I was doing but still you get people that want to test you, want to test you especially in poker. I’ve also seen it in roulette and craps. Yes, just be human. Be a little vulnerable at the table. Don’t be off putting. Learn how to do that and practice and don’t be afraid to mess up. Certainly don’t get yourself fired, you know what I mean.

Heather: Yeah. It helps to be kind of a bit of a therapist.

Marc: Yeah.

Heather: You have to listen to them and empathise and sympathise and all that. I found that a lot of times if I have an angry player or someone who is just really mad at me, if I just listen to him -- I am like, “Hey you want to vent?” Don’t just go off, they will vent. You just listen and you don't talk and dude they are so happy after that.

Marc: Heather I gotta tell you, if I was playing at your table I would feel super comfortable doing that too. You just have that vibe. It is exactly what I am talking about. Poker is a little different too. Not in a bad way, it just -- you can have a player that’s just one player at your table playing just with you and they might feel comfortable opening up like that. In poker what happens is sometimes you get players that sit in the seats right next to the dealer and they want to talk to you quietly, right? And you know what, if you kinda go with it and you have those little tiny connection moments with them that are little things to laugh about, or whatever it is. It can make a huge difference for them. That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about too.

Heather: Yeah. That’s an absolute great point. You don’t want to do the therapy thing on the poker table with multiple people, that would totally kill everything.

Marc: You never know what the table type is at, but yeah.

Heather: They don’t call them poker sharks for nothing. They would eat you alive.

Marc: They would, your right.

Heather: Thank you so much for coming here and giving us these 5 tricks for dealing a better Texas Hold’em game. And if people want more information if they want to hear more from you where can people find you again?

Marc: I appreciate that! I am TruePokerDealer channel on YouTube is the easiest way to find me. I’m just right here on YouTube. TruePokerDealer and that’s my channel. You can also find me at TruePokerDealer.com both of those work, but I really like the YouTube platform so I really just focus in right on YouTube all the time. You can also find me on a new channel that I am creating on YouTube called LivePokerCoaching. I work with a poker pro that is cashed for over a million dollars in his career as a poker player in live tournaments. He and I together simulate two five no limit cash games where we are simulating five hundred hands consecutively and we play the hand and then we talk through every single decision. That basically means he is the expert on playing, so he talks through all the decisions. It’s pretty fascinating, one hand per video. We are just starting that up. There’s three samples out there now. So you can find me at either of those two places.

But TruePokerDeal is me, that’s what I have been known for for years. You can actually learn how to deal poker from start to finish on my YouTube channel and I’m actually really proud of that. It’s a lot of work as Heather knows. Crating all of those videos is crazy. I do want to shout out Heather too. Some of the tips you have given me over the years in order to make my channel better have been phenomenal, I super appreciate that. It’s been great being friendly with you all this time.

Heather: I completely agree. I’m lucky that we’re friends and that we have known each other for so long. We sorta have gone through this whole YouTube thing together. So what do you use for this? What do you do for that? Thank you so much!

Marc: Exactly!

Heather: Got a really quick question before we get going. Thank you very much for the superchat.

Q: Steff just asked: Any tips for a beginner who is just starting to deal 3 Card or Ultimate?

Marc: Oh since that is your neck of the woods do you want to take it? I can try. I’ve dealt it 10 years ago.

Heather: I’ll do 3 Card Poker if you do Texas Hold’em.

Marc: Yep.

Heather: Okay cool. So basically 3 Card Poker, super easy, super fun, I think the hardest thing about 3 Card Poker is you gotta remember that the straight and the flush switch. So on a normal poker game a flush beats -- no a straight beats a flush. On a 3 Card Poker game it’s the opposite, a flush beats a straight. Am I right on that Marc? I might not be right on that.

Marc: In 3 Card a straight beats a flush, as you know. In regular poker a flush beats a straight. Correct.

Heather: Right. I know that that’s a thing because I remember getting written for screwing that up. So that’s how I remember.

Marc: That blew my mind the first time I saw it. I was like what? But then I did the math and I was like, okay.

Heather: That it didn’t make sense, right. And then after that with 3 Card Poker, just remember that if you don’t qualify the play always wins and the anti always pushes.

Marc: That is good advice, too. Man it brings me back. I used to think of 3 Card Poker as a vacation, while I was at work. It was a lot less complicated than some of the other stuff. So for Ultimate Texas Hold'em, I find that the dealers have the most trouble with not the payouts but the hands themselves and being about to see them. Now as a poker dealer, for me that’s become super easy. One thing that you can do, is on my channel I do teach an Omaha trick for how to read Omaha hands on your own. Now Omaha is way more complicated than Texas Hold’em. So if you were to go find the Omah video that I have and practice reading hands over and over again. That would help you. Because that would get you to see the stuff without to much effort. At the end of the day practicing reading hands that are out there on the board is saying that you need to be able to do in Texas Hold’em. In Ultimate Texas Hold’em -- it’s one of those things that you can kind of sneak by if you aren't perfect with the hands. But I have seen it over and over again you are going to miss something. On the table. Like dealers of Ultimate Texas Hold’em -- I used to floor behind dealers at that game and it’s like -- if they won't also poker dealers they would miss stuff. You gotta practice stuff. You gotta practice reading hands and if you want to go to the big league right away. Omaha is a good place to do that, because each player has four cards, and there’s still five cards on the board and you are reading what their best hand is. You're going to master it if you spend -- I would say you could probably master it if you could spend like four hours on it.

Heather: Nice. And you just practice at home with a deck of cards?

Marc: The video that I did shows you deal out a board, and then using the same deck you just keep dealing out four card hands and reading them. You do that over and over again. Buy the end of it, you’ve got so many hands under your belt. It’s kinda crazy.

Heather: Nice! If you are doing the muscle memory. It’s the seeing part of it. Seeing and recognizing part of it.

Marc: Yeah exactly.

Heather: I think this might be our last question.

Q: Any dealer incentive programs that have been successful at properties that you have worked at?

Marc: Interesting.

Heather: I have one really quick if you don’t have one.

Marc: Yes go ahead.

Heather: So I worked at Rio which used to be owned by Harris. Back in the day when Harris was actually Harris and not owned by Caesars. Harris had this really -- they were fantastic. They trained you really well. They trained you a lot. They had a lot of fantastic incentives, they were so amazing to work for. One of the incentives that they had was, every time you get a customer rating card that was a good rating you would get a certain amount of money. So if you got 10 good customer rating cards. You know you would be at the table, you’d be working like really good customer service and talking and blah blah blah. Hey before you go could you fill out this customer rating report? You would try to rack them up. The more you racked up the more money you got. So every two weeks you would get a bonus check. Everyone got a bonus check. Depending on how many customer review rating cards you had depended on how big the bonus check was. It wasn’t a small amount either. It wasn’t like you got a bonus check for $30. I mean you would get a bonus check for $100, $200, $300. Some people got a $500 check, depending on how good you were. It was just a really very good incentive program.

Marc: That's amazing. I have never worked at a place that did anything quite to that extent. I have only been somewhere where if you got enough people to sign up for players cards you would get different things. It was more in the range of $50 - $100. I have worked at a lot of casinos that did a lot of random things. I actually don’t think that random giveaways are good incentives in general.

Heather: And the casinos can lose a lot of money with that too.

Marc: Yeah. The thing that I’ll say for poker though is the rooms kinda approach it differently. The rooms will give away money as high hands. You know every thirty minutes $500. They do that at a couple of the rooms down in Florida. When a dealer deals one of those they get extra money on their shift every single time. If you deal a $500 winning hand on top of the pot in the hand of poker. When the player gets paid for the high hand they end up getting that type of incentive. I can tell you it’s not intentionally an incentive program for dealers but it does a good job.

Heather: Cool. That’s really cool.

Marc: It is interesting.

Heather: Yeah. A lot of casinos have a lot of incentive programs. It’s interesting to see what each one does. Cool. Okay it’ looks like that is all of the questions. Marc, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Really do appreciate it. I hope we can have you back on.

Marc: It’s good to be here. Two thumbs up!

Heather: Thanks for watching and we hope to see you on our next live stream.