Casino Stories feat. Casino Dealer Jay

Heather: My name is Heather Ferris and I will be your host today. I am joined with –

Jay: Jay Rodil

Heather: Jay can you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Jay: Wow this is weird, just because I am the one being asked the questions. This is new. My name is Jay Rodil. I am from Canada. I have been in the casino industry for 22 years. I started –

Heather: You don’t even look it.

Jay: Oh no I don’t look 22? No, just kidding. Well I started when I was 19. Technically 2nd generation casino dealer. My dad was a dealer. However my brother was the one that first got into the industry. Then I followed suit seven years later when I was old enough. So I was dealing at the Palace Casino here in Edmonton in Canada. That was in the biggest mall. It was the biggest mall in the world at the time, but now it’s the biggest mall in the Americas. I was dealing there and then I ended up going on the cruise ships. I was dealing on the cruise ships for a while. I came back to a little town after my contract and I introduced craps into the city. I became a manager. I was a 22 year old manager and I will tell you I sucked. Totally sucked. I was not ready for that position. I love to tell everyone on the channel that it was just something that helped me with my casino career down the road. If I didn’t have that lesson then I wouldn’t have been able to progress when I got back home to Edmonton. I got to work for a few casinos. I worked a lot of weird well no not weird, but a lot of different positions. It wasn’t just in gaming, I was the food and beverage manager. I was games manager, pit manager, whatever title you had, I had it. Box man, training coordinator and then human resources. Me human resources? Casino dealer that is in human resources? Yep I ended up doing that and I was managing. It has been full circle. I work in the hospital now. That is my full time job. I still work once a month.

Heather: In that case good luck.

Jay: Thank you so much. I am not in the units any more. I am not wearing scrubs any more. I am in the office that is a little bit safer here.

Heather: That is good.

Jay: That is basically it. Just a lot of hats. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have stayed in the industry so long. It was such an adventure. The people that you meet. Crazy!

Heather: Yeah! So I bet working in an office is way more boring than working as a dealer or floor supervisor?

Jay: Oh yeah. For sure. When you work in – it’s funny because when I was working both jobs – after managing I did leave for a while – I was still DJing and weird stuff like that for the casino but then I ended up coming back as a dealer at another casino here just because I loved it. Right! So.

Heather: That is cool.

Jay: It’s weird having those two jobs, because you are in the hospital where it's like sanitize your hands and then you go to the casino where it's like ok I know where those chips have been. Cleanest to the dirtiest to the cleanest.

Heather: And you know the only time the chips are cleaned is when the alcohol is speared into the rack and then it’s like ok we have to close the table and we have to actually you know. I have done that a couple of times and I would always start off with a white rag and by the time I was done that rag was pure black. This is disgusting.

**Jay - That is so funny. You know back then before we had the Tito tickets I would be in the break room with a lot of the slot department. Their hands would be so black from the coin. I would see a couple of them eating sandwiches like it was nothing. I was like okay.

Heather: Ohhhh no!! No!! That is the one thing about being a dealer. You wash your hands before the break and after the break. Particularly before the break. When you are coming off the table, eww wash your hands.

Jay: Yeah for sure.

Heather: Some nasty stuff I used to see was I actually saw a couple of baccarat players pick their nose and then wipe the boogers on their cards. And speaking of which I saw a cowboy eat a card. I think you saw someone eat a card too right?

Jay: Oh yeah!

Heather: Want to tell us the story? We will compare notes, and see if it is the same person.

Jay: Just from talking with you before I know we have a lot of similar stories. Just in the time in the industry. I was the games manager at a casino. I was that acting games manager so I was on shift. When you are a games manager you get to walk around. You know you look important. You get to talk to everybody. It’s so relaxing until something happens then you have to deal with it. At the casino that I was working at we actually got access to surveillance. So then I ended up getting a call to surveillance. Okay you gotta see this. So I go up and watch. OMG okay there is a story behind this, come back down. This guy is just sitting at the table and I know the hand. I still remember the hand because it’s like, player shows 6 and stands, bank shows 0 card bank. He’s betting bank, he gets a card and it’s hand held, not mini bac here so the guys is peeling the card. You can tell already it is like a tv, monkey, it’s a face card. Right? He’s peeling the card and he is just looking at it and he is like if I don’t give you this card you can’t finish the hand right? The floor supervisor was like, “What are you talking about?”

He said again, “If I don’t give you this card, you can’t finish this hand right?” “No, you have to give us the card.” “Oh yeah!” He then folds up the card in like four and puts it in his mouth and eats it. The floor supervisor – watching it in replay you see the floor supervisor throw his hands up in the air, goes up, walks straight to the pit, get’s on the phone. Then the call is like, “Hey what’s up? Yep, he did it again! He did it again! Yep. Alright.” And that was it.

Heather: You know he was betting some big money if they were like, yep he’s doing it again just give him another card.

Jay: Repeat offender. It was just – you know you walk to the table and he knows. He or she. Confidentiality agreement. He or she knows. You know the drill you just walk straight out.

Heather: We had a player eat the card as well. It was during the National Finals Rodeo. It’s the first two weeks of December super busy. Super drunk cowboys everywhere. One of the cowboys was on my table. He was betting I think $5000 or $10,000, it was some large amount. I am blanking on the number. He ended up getting a 16, he hit the 16 and got a 10. He was pretty pissed so he picked up the 10 crumpled it up and ate it and asked for another card.

I was like, “Floor!” Floor comes over, we need another 10 of hearts. He was like what do you mean we need another 10 of hearts? I was like this guy just ate it. He was like stop BSing me. We are freaking busy, I have shit to do, don’t come over here and start BSing me and pulling this crap on me. I said no, check the cameras if you don’t believe me. I need a King of hearts. What do you want me to do? What the hell. So he calls security, he calls the cameras and he ask them to verify this and they did. He is like yeah, he did eat the card. So he comes back and he is like, well if he wants a card so badly give him another card.

Okay. So I hit him and I give him a 5 for 21 and we ended up paying the guy. And then I get tapped off, I’m going on break I stop by the podium and I am like, why the hell did you do that? He was like well, he has been here for three days, he has lost $30,000 each day, so for $90,000 I think we can give him another card. That’s fair enough. Can’t argue with that.

Jay: I probably would be a smart ass if I was there. I would be like, “Sir, I'm not giving you another card until you give me that card back.” Kidding!

Heather: Even if we have to wait a couple days. Yeah. Have you ever experienced that where someone did go no.1 or no. 2 in your presence?

Jay: Well yeah. No. I don’t want to talk about these stories. They are kinda gross. I don’t know if you are ready for that.

Heather: They are so gross.

Jay: I have had experience. And not as a games manager but as a dealer floor supervisor. There have been accidents on the table.

Heather: Accidents? Or stuff on purpose? I have had stuff on purpose.

Jay: Let’s say both. The one I am thinking about was definitely on purpose. I really felt bad for the maintenance crew that was cleaning that up. Cleaning that up off the foye. When it gets to the point – when you watch the replay of this guy holding his pants walking to the door. Letting it out. You laugh at it now but when you are there you are like oh no please!

Heather: That is so funny. I have had it happen more than once because they were winning and they didn’t want to leave the table to go to the bathroom. So they just went right there, while they were playing.

Jay: I do recall that story when I was interviewing you. You were giving me that.

Heather: Yeah! BTW if you don’t know I was a guest on Jay's show last night. Jay when and where can people see that episode?

Jay: You can see that episode on my YouTube channel which is called CasionDealerJay. I interview people from the casino industry. Including Heather. Heather I just want to say I love your channel so much!

Heather: Well thank you!

Jay: It really helped me when I was working full time in the industry. Heather by far is a gem. I say watch all of her videos and the content that she provides is amazing. It’s been 10 years! Holy Crap! The amount of work that you have put in, I totally admire that. It is totally amazing. By far you are the best! So cool to be on your channel. I am so honored. I really appreciate it.

Heather: Well thank you. I appreciate that. I am honored to have you on the show too. Thank you so much. Much appreciated.

Jay: So yeah, my channel is CasinoDealerJay and that segment with Heather is called On Break with Heather Ferris. What I love about it is the fact that I can tap into a lot of the people in the industry and bridge the two generations together. Now that I am back – well I am not back yet because of the pandemic but when I do go back to work there has been such a big gap from when I started as a dealer and when I came back as a dealer that the people that I worked with 20 years ago are not really there anymore. It kind of sucked because – hello John Holland, I see you on the chat. A person like John Holland who is an amazing dealer a lot of people never got to meet him. So to have his stories and your stories from when you were a dealer, it is really cool to share. People get that. They can relate to that as a dealer. If we are having stories like this and we talk about things that happen in our career. Can you imagine the stories people have right now?

Heather: Well forest of all dealers have the best stories. I completely agree. When we have similar stories it’s nice to know that we are not the only ones that experience someone say taking a crap on our table. You know. It feels better. It’s like okay I am not the only one.

Jay: Not just in the states. It is everywhere. It is an international thing that happens.

Heather: Yeah! Now have you ever had someone cheat on your table, or do you know someone who was a dealer or floor supervisor who cheated? Let’s say they got arrested or something.

Jay: Oh wow!

Heather: I can tell a story if it will give you a little time to think about it.

Jay: No I have a story. I was just talking about this with a friend of mine last night. It’s just the fact that if I do say these stories then a lot of people will know who these people are.

Heather: Oh don’t do that.

Jay: It’s tough. I don’t want to call people out. Yes there have been instances where we have had a floor supervisor and people with slight of hand. Or they would be doing a lot of deck switching that would benefit a player but it would get a royal flush on a progressive game, say like Ultimate Texas Hold’em or Three Card Poker. The shuffle machine is broken, we are going to have to hand shuffle. Yep. Deck switcheroo front the pit and then all of a sudden there is a royal flush there. It gets reviewed on surveillance and it’s like hold on a second!

Heather: Yeah!

Jay: I will tell you this though – yes I have had people arrested. Yeah and obviously they were terminated and they don’t get their license any more. But anyways beside the point there. It’s actually incredible, because a lot of those catches were from dealers. Dealers would actually see and they would be the ones that say hey there is something going on here. This guy is checking my tray and all of sudden there is some money missing. Like what happened? Right? So then that would be the dealers that bring up the red flags and then surveillance would look into it. Then all of this stuff would happen.

Heather: That is good. It is good for a dealer to be aware of their surroundings and what is going on for sure. We had – I don’t mind calling people out. We had a floor supervisor who he ended up working with his roommate and they made counterfeit money. He would be a box man on craps and the roommate would come to the craps table and use the counterfeit money. He would really quick go over to it drop it in the drop box and hand out the money. He would play a few hands and then go to the cage and cash out. They made like over a half a million or something doing this for a year or something. It was a long time before the casino finally caught on.

They are like why do we keep getting counterfeit money in this one drop box, at this one shift at this one time. So then they put the camera on them and they saw what happened and what was going on. So what happened was they didn’t tell him that they knew. He came into work one day with a sitting box. That is when the cops and everyone came in and arrested him on the table in the middle of the game and escorted him out. They wanted to do it that way to make sure that they knew where he would be and that he wouldn’t run.

Jay: I remember that you had the other Jay, Jay Shapiro?

Heather: The other Jay.

Jay: Love that guy. Amazing! Love to meet him one day. He was just talking about old and new. Not just with dealing and supervising and the industry itself like customer service and sweating the money and everything. It was also like security as well. When you bring up that story and like they actually wait. When I started that is basically what they did with cheaters too. It was to the point where it’s like hey, look at this guy getting arrested. Maybe you should not do what he is doing because that is what is going to happen to you if you even think of that.

Heather: Yeah.

Jay: Now a days it’s like you get pulled back in. It like Human Resources thing. It’s like you know you get to this talk and you are asked if you need a lawyer. No? Okay. You will discuss this for now you have been terminated or whatever it is wherever you are from.

Heather: Another way is the person runs out. We had that where the dealer ran out. He was stealing from the dealers. He was on the toke committee. It was before the cameras were in the toke committee room. So what he would do was whenever there was a black chip he would pocket it.

He did that for 20 years. He ended up stealing a couple million dollars from dealers over that period of time. They finally caught him after putting the camera in the room. But anyway 90’s and 2000's, they caught him and he ran out of the casino and he passed by my table and threw something in the trash. When security ran by I told them he threw something in the trash and they found all of these black chips that he had in his pocket. What happened was they didn’t arrest him or press charges. The reason why is because he stole from 300 dealers and they needed 300 dealers to press charges in order to do it. He didn’t steal from the casino. So he basically got away with it. The only thing they did to him was blacklisted him. So he is on the blacklist, he can’t come in or work or play in any casino. He is blacklisted from all properties in Las Vegas. Of course he has a permanent stain on his record but that was – Yeah.

Jay: Yeah we have a similar protocol when something like that where to occur. They do lose their license, they are blacklisted and they are never able to come back. You have to be bondable and good with money. We have our security clearance, and our license is good here for two years. You constantly have to keep that up. If something like that occurs you are never going to make it back.

Heather: Yeah.

Jay: Sorry I’m not taking over this interview here Heather but I just noticed that your hair looks lovely.

Heather: Oh thank you!

Jay: A non starwars type.

Heather: Yes. Finally!

Jay: It’s not Lea guys. Come on.

Heather: I have been trying all my life. I am 38 years old and I have been trying since I was 16 to do a sailor moon hair bun and I finally got it today. I even got the things down here and I got the gems inside. I am super stoked that I have the sailor moon hair today. Thank you very much for that.

Jay: I was going to have the same hairstyle as you but you know once I saw you I just ran to the back and changed it up.

Heather: I know you have the sailor moon wig in there that we can put on really quick. Now when you were a dealer did you see anyone in costume? Or any crazy outfits or anything like that. Any wardrobe malfunctions?

Jay: Oh boy. Well yeah obviously being in the mall, and a super busy mall and Halloween happening, a lot of the people would – you would see a lot of costumes that you would not normally see for trick-or-treaters. Lots of adults wearing a lot of the kids clothing. Probably the same size too. It was crazy to be there in the Halloween season in one of the busiest malls in the world. Yeah I have seen that. I don’t know if you are trying to pull out the stripper story as well.

Heather: Well I mean if you want to talk about it it is up to you.

Jay: Okay I guess so. Let’s talk about it. When I was a floor supervisor of the casino there was one day and one shift that we would all fight over. I am a guy. I will say this first. I am married now by the way. So before when I was young and I was immature we would fight for the Sunday – I even know the letter too. It’s called the F shift. The F shift was roulette. The reason why we would fight over this shift was because on Sunday nights the strip club that was just up the road a little bit north, on the way to the mall was closed early. So the owner of that strip club would bring the ladies over to play roulette.

So when you talk about Halloween costumes, that is every Sunday. We would all fight and none of us would OE on that Sunday shift. Even the roulette relief supervisor would be so happy. I know that this story has come up where you would have floor supervisors just hanging at the table. Well we only had those two tables, so unfortunately we had to stay at those two tables the whole shift.

Heather: Oh. That must have been so disappointing.

Jay: OMG. Just like when I was DJing a Burlesque show. And this was good money and it was on contract. It was at the casino stage. I would just be on the side and I would be playing the music for the Burlesque dancers. Shout out to Sarah if you are watching this. The pinheruppers were amazing. I would just complain to Sarah all the time. This is such a rough job for me. I have to watch these ladies and make sure they finish their routine and then I am going to have to shut off the music and switch it up. I can’t believe it. This is insane. We will just leave it at that.

Heather: Okay. I told a similar story on I think on your episode. Same similar thing, this was at the Rio and the Palms used to have a sleepover party. The sleepover party all the women would show up in their lingerie and then afterwards they would go and disperse. So you would have groups of women wearing lingerie walking around the casino. I’m dealing on my blackjack game and my floor supervisor is like hey if one of those groups of girls walks by I want you to call over floor. “Okay, I got you. We are cool.” He is like ok awesome. So every single time one of the groups would walk by I was like “floor”. He was like, “Yes, I see.” We would just sit there and we would look and then we would go back dealing. I had like one or two guys on my table and they didn’t get it until the second time and then they looked over their shoulder and was like Ohhhh! Kay we can do this too. We are cool with this. No complaints at all.

Jay: That’s funny. So the casino that I am working at right now there is a code that is called shuffle check. Whenever someone – So I am on the dice table and you can hear one of them say shuffle check and that would be – those guys codes not my codes. I just know about it.

Heather: You know it’s a code when everybody's head turns the same way and look. Yeah that’s a code.

Jay: So one of the pit managers found out about the code – well they all know about it, found out about the code and then it was just like this old granny walking by. You would hear “shuffle check.” Oh boy.

Heather: Now for Halloween do they ever let you wear costumes while you deal?

Jay: No. The only time that we actually got to change our outfits was for hockey playoffs.

Heather: And you guys wear a jersey?

Jay: Yeah that doesn’t happen to often here because our team – they hardly make the playoffs so, yeah. Well we did have party pits and whatnot and we would have jerseys and things for everyone to wear for that. And we also did paradice pits. Again this is more like the party pits we see there.

Heather: Yeah.

Jay: Well all over there in Las Vegas. I love Vegas by the way.

Heather: When was the last time you visited?

Jay: I think it has been a few years. Maybe like three years. My first time in Vegas was not good. Because I went as a 21 year old.

Heather: Oh.

Jay: Yeah.

Heather: That was probably the best thing that could have happened. The worst thing is when you come to Las Vegas and you win a ton of money. Then you think you can do that every time.

Jay: OMG. Yeah that’s true. I have so many stories about my first time there. Anyways I will give you one. My first time being there 21. We were kids. So we were there with a couple people, my friend Mike and my friend Marvin. We are all dealers too. We just learned craps. Were all there for the first time in Vegas. We didn’t have any money so we stayed at the Imperial Palace. It was there at the time. The Aladdin was still up.

Heather: Wow!

Jay: We go down and we are on the dice table. It’s a $3 table and I was like yeah I am a dealer too! OMG! This is great. They are looking at me like oh my gosh this punk, unbelievable. It’s 6 o’clock, I don’t want to deal with you. So it’s like, I lost my money. I think I had $2 left and I was going to tip them. They dealer was like you can play that for yourself. Okay. I put it on the line. And he was like bet for the dealers. And the dice roll and it’s a seven and he takes it and he puts it away and looks at me until I leave. I am one of you guys, why are you doing this? My friends are laughing their asses off at me. It’s just like that guy put you to school. I just fell for it.

I’m so gullible. “I’m a dealer too, it's so great.” Everyone is a dealer. Nothing special!

Heather: That’s awesome.

Jay: Do you want to go through some comments?

Heather: We have some –

Jay: You might have some fans that want to talk to you Heather.

Heather: We have some people on the comments. Lots saying hi and telling their stories, which is awesome. We have one or two questions.

Q: How is business in Vegas. Is it coming back? A: Well we will see. It’s technically coming back. They might close it because our numbers are going up. We will see what happens.

Next question.

Q: Any stories of dealers working with a players and cheating together?

Jay: Oh yes. There is a lot of collusion. It’s a lot easier when it’s a combo like that. Yeah, I just seen dealers and players that work together to do a bad beat in poker. So at the time our cap for bad beats was at $10,000. Like in a nutshell it would just be a deck swap under the table and then the bad beat would be dealt. Something like that. There are a lot of straight forward ones where they think the camera is watching but they are not. We’ve gone through a lot of those situations because a player is in on it.

One of the easiest ones that – well the easiest cheat that you can do is just collusion on a dice table. Where if the dealer knows the player it’s just like, that is a call bet I booked it. It depends if you have a strong box or not. If the box is a relief box that doesn’t know craps and they are just going through rotations. Sometimes they don’t understand, right? So then you could be like yeah that was a bet, that was a hard 10 hopping for max or something. And then that person would get paid out. Yeah we run into situations like that. There are a lot of situations where you can see that happening between a dealer and the player. Supervisor as well. The floor supervisor has a lot of mobility. You are able to walk around and you manipulate a lot of things.

Heather: The casino has to worry about their workers, their staff more than they have to worry about their players as far as cheating goes.

Jay: Yeah! So like I said before, I was surprised that it was a lot of the dealers and the staff that did the tip off. It’s like wow I just saw this guy do this. You know in poker it’s like, there was a houseman that caught one of the dealers taking tips. It’s weird. Our industry here is a little different than anywhere else. A lot of the casino industry in Canada are a lot of charitable gaming, so a percentage of the money – for table games it is usually half that goes to licensed charities.

Heather: Oh that’s nice.

Jay: That is why we don’t see the golden lions and the really big building here because it’s half half thing.

Heather: Cool.

Jay: There are a lot of government regulations here.

Heather: Speaking of government, we have one viewer right now who things you should you run for mayor. What do you think of that? Thank you Wayne.

Jay: Oh wow! Hi Wayne. He is also in the industry. Oh no not anymore. We just had a chat.

Heather: Now have you ever seen a celebrity or a famous person in your casino. Do you have any stories of that?

Jay: I have met the Black Eyed Peas. That was really cool. They weren’t really playing they were in the mall. They wanted to do a cool little interview. They used our casino.

Heather: That is cool.

Jay: Yeah. Again I mean I lived a tough life in my career. I got asked to DJ when the playboy machines came in –

Heather: Oh nice.

Jay: – they needed a DJ. I said fine I will hang out with these Playboy playmates that are promoting. I will suffer and sit with them and I will play the music that they want.

Heather: That is so tough.

Jay: Yeah I got autographs and yeah. We have an NHL team so there are a lot of hockey players that come in and play. There are some really nice ones. For the most part.

Heather: Cool. So next up let’s see if we have any more comments. A lot of people are commenting on washing their hands. We have a lot of comments on that. Some said they worked with food and then they would handle their cash and never wash their hands. Other people are saying they would handle cash all day and their hands would be pure black. Yeah money is so dirty.

Jay: Yeah. If you are working in a casino that doesn’t really maintain their tables too well. You would come home and like – this is for new dealers, try to keep your nails short. There would be a lot of dirt built up here and it would be black and really really grosse.

Heather: Especially craps and roulette. That would happen more on craps and roulette.

Jay: OMG yes roulette. Shout out to my friend Jim who showed this lazy way of actually pushing chips because he has – well I have arthritis, because I am old. But my hands are really though and for you dealers that know that your 100, 120, 140 push up to 200. Sometimes your hand is really cramped after a long shift. My friend Jim who I was chipping for, said check this out, he had his hand flat on the table and he would be pushing 120 flat. And you are like wow that is incredible. Yes I call this the lazy push but that is not why it’s called it’s just – you just need to keep your hands lazy. You need to take care of yourself right? So funny. That guy was hilarious. So I started doing that for a little while and then I had to stop after one shift. Because at the ended of one shift my hand was so black from everything that I picked up from that felt. Ewww.

Heather: Oh my gosh. That is a very good point, definitely keep your nails short. That’s a very good point. I actually knew a couple – I can’t say dealers I have to say floor supervisors. One or two floor supervisors they were women, they did the long nails that come out and curl under. I am so surprised, she could cut chips, she could shuffle. I mean she was a floor supervisor but if I had to tap out she could go in and deal my game no problem. She had the nail! I was like how are you doing that? Practice, lots of practice!

Jay: Yeah. I did deal with someone that had long nails and that person was amazing at like picking up chips. It would be like 7 same bet and these nails were so long. OMG look at you!

Heather: Incredible. So one question we have from the viewers…

Q: Have you seen any celebrities throw a paddy, we are assuming throwing a fit because they lost?

Jay: It’s mostly hockey players that I got to meet and deal with. There was one instance where we did have – a hockey player not very friendly, not very nice. He ended up dating half the food and beverage staff. Well anyways this person had a hissy fit and we had to basically ask this player to leave. He wasn't a first line center or anything like that. I mean you run into situations where it’s like, do you know who I am? You know who I am. A lot of the time it’s just the liquor involved. If it’s like in the afternoon and you meet someone famous it’s not that bad.

There is one situation where a dealer was hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic, one of the two. They passed out and – this celebrity was rude. “Just deal the cards! Get me a replacement! Deal the cards!!” I was like no, not happening.

Heather: They tend to be a little idolized.

Jay: There are a lot that are humble. Like for me I am a hockey fan. I think the questions someone asked what team? Edmonton Oilers. Don’t laugh. You know how much they make a year. Oh wow! There was a lot of down to earth athletes that we got to meet.

Heather: That’s cool. One question we have from viewers is…

Q: What is the usual policy for pregnant dealers?

A: Heather - Here in Las Vegas it’s just like any other work, they are pregnant and they still work until a month beforehand and then they take some time off and they come back. If they have to sit down we have some sit down tables. Other than that it’s just normal. How about you?

Jay: Yeah it’s pretty similar here. It’s about a month. You try to give a date where this is my expected date of delivery and I am going to go on that leave. It’s just a lot of communication with the games manager here. They would either take 12 – it depends if it is a couple together. Sometimes they go 6 months, the other would take 6 months. But it is usually 12 to 18 months. Normally 12 months. So you take 12 months of that leave.

Heather: Wow that’s a lot.

Jay: Yah you just say I am coming back on this day.

Heather: That’ Canada for you.

Jay: Yeah 12 months. Yeah. Take your time. Don’t worry about it.

Heather: Here Americans take maybe a month. Three weeks you better be able to get them out and come back soon. Come on!

Jay: I don’t want to say modified duties. When I was a pit manager I am not going to schedule you on dice. Like I’m going to put you on base, it’s busy. We have like 9 players on this side.

Heather: And the woman is like nine months pregnant.

Jay: Don’t you dare tell that player to push their bets in. Honestly you reach out and you pay that. No side bets.

Heather: The next question is…

Q: When and if pot becomes federally legal, do you think casinos and pit bosses will allow people to be toking at the the tables like cigarettes?

Jay: I am wondering where you are. It is kind of legal here so –

Heather: They can’t smoke it at the table right?

Jay: No. That's the thing our casinos are nonsmoking here.

Heather: Oh you can’t smoke anything at the table.

Jay: There are designated areas you can go and smoke. It was smoking when I started but it was a government rule that it would be nonsmoking.

Heather: Yeah here they definitely smoke it here. It’s legal but you can’t smoke it in the casino. The casino would lose their Nevada Gaming license in a heartbeat. So you can not do that period.

Jay: Yep.

Heather: I don’t know if it is going to change any time soon. They will not allow it.

Jay: Yeah it doesn’t apply for us. Any cigarettes too.

Heather: Q: What is the worse uniform you’ve had to wear at work?

Jay: Oh John!

Heather: That is a good question.

Jay: It’s because we wore the same –

Heather: So you had to wear the same bad uniform?

Jay: So for those of you who don’t know Jon Holland – You can watch Jon Holland on the casinodealerjay channel. Funniest guy that I know. Amazing craps dealer. I say just bombard him with craps questions if you want to be an amazing dealer too. Anyways with Jon he worked for RCCL I think. Royal Caribbean. I was also hired with Royal Caribbean Celebrities. When I worked for that company we had these – we had a day uniform and an evening uniform. Our day uniform was exactly the same as the A&W uniform. It had stripes and it was like brown, blue, yellow stripes all the way down this nice button up shirt. You had your name tag and it was like, “Can I supersize that?” Yeah. Anyways.

Heather: Nice. We had one outfit they were – they gave us shirts – everyone else was fine but I would swim in this shirt. That is like how big the shirt was. They would give us three colors. We could wear whatever color we wanted yellow, red or green or blue, can’t remember. It was one of those things where you could take it home but if you lost it you would have to pay for it and everything.

Another time they wanted me to wear a bathing suit. Those bathing suits hurt. Tight! Like I need to breathe.

Jay: Was it a two piece? I don’t look good in a two piece.

Heather: we could totally get you in a two piece. I can see you in a two piece. We could have you at the pool dealing in a heartbeat.

Jay: My gut would definitely be sitting over that blackjack table.

Heather: You would get so many tips!

Jay: Probably yeah! Tips on like how to not wear that any more. People come to the table OMG we need bandaids for my eyes. Can’t believe I saw that. Dad bod life guys.

Heather: You go to Las Vegas and you go to the pools and you think that the Las Vegas pools are going to look like the ads you see. You know where it’s all good looking young people and they all have hot bods and you want to be around them. NO! You go to a Las Vegas pool and it’s like freaking 90 year old guys in speedos and grannies that are wearing bikinis when they shouldn't be wearing bikinis. It’s like ewww. Let me go somewhere else.

Jay: Some people like that. That’s their scene.

Heather: Okay so our next question is…

Q: What is the funniest reason you had to back someone off?

Jay: Back someone off as in cut them off?

Heather: Kick them off the table, 86 them, give a warning.

Jay: Well it was an old Asian lady. I had to kick her off the table because her pants were falling off down to the side. So she was showing everything. This is downtown. OMG Fridays are insane. I have another story for that. Anyways we pull her off and she doesn't speak any English. I am filipino, she thinks I am Chinese. She is talking to me in Cantonese and I am like I don’t know. Just pull your pants up (showing action). This is like a day shift too.

Heather: It’s not even swing.

Jay: She’s was like punching me. It was right here in like the boob, not even in the arm or the face. It was like in the boob and I was like ouch! Why are you doing that?

Heather: She punched you in the boob?

Jay: Yeah she hit me. And then I am like looking at them, “What are you going to do?” The security guards are snickering and laughing at me. Okay. So anyways her son or whatever came and said let’s get out of here. Yeah she was mad. And she just left. Yeah great story.

Heather: Was that the only time you had someone hit you, or physically assault you?

Jay: Well there are some situations where I have been pushed as a manager.

Heather: Your boob gets assaulted.

Jay: Yeah like my side boob gets assaulted every now and then. But a lot of the time especially downtown there was a great group of guys that worked there. Back then when this casino existed downtown, it was like the inner city, so there was right behind the parking lot across from it there was a center for the homeless. There was another center for homeless just past that. Then there was assisted living. It wasn’t the best neighborhood to be around.

So we come in in the morning, other than the people that had jobs downtown and park in our parking lot because it was free. You cut into the casino and go out the door and go to work because they didn’t want to pay for their parking. Other than that we had a lot of transient and homeless people around there.

With that you come in in the morning and you would just be stepping over these people and gum. It was pretty crazy. Some of them would have player cards too. It would be like what?

We would have our draws, so then like these guys would have cards too. I was like Sir, No, you can’t have players cards right now. Where did you even get that address.

Going back to the question about getting pushed or what not. Not so much there but there was a lot of verbal altercations.

I will give you one quick story. There was a guy here and he was just swearing his butt off. He was on baccarat. It was mini baccarat and it was just on the main floor. Everyone was having a problem with him. I was a relief games manager at the time I had a training position but I wasn’t dining any training. They helped me out by givinging me these shifts. They were usually on the weekend and what not. I come in and I’m on shift and I am the games manager and this guy is swearing off. The floor supervisor is having a hard time. He goes up to the pin manager. The pin manager is having a hard time. They call me and I come down and I’m trying to talk to this guy. He is like who the “F” are you? I am like, “Well hi I’m Jay I just want to make sure you are alright, right?” The guy was like I am fine. What are you going to do? Are you trying to kick me out or something? I was like “No but do you want to like keep the volume down?”

You know when you are dealing with someone like that you need to keep a level head. You don’t take anything personally. You don’t want to – like this guy was jacked up. He was really muscular guy. I know he could kick my ass. So just being real. Try to say don’t be a dick as nicely as you can. And then he was like oh yeah for sure. I get the sarcasm. I step back and it’s like 5 minutes and he just let’s off this “F” bomb. He knows right! So my team of security guards are so cool. They come up and they talk to him. “Hey sir it’s time for you to go.” He get’s escorted to the front. He screams “F all of you! All you “F”ers, get the hell out of here.” He goes in the foyer and it’s double glass doors. He just smashes the outside one. The glass just shattered. He bolts! The person that works there, his name is West. He was the security supervisor. This guy is like super fit. He chases him. This guy is bolting across the parking lot. I swear it was like – this guy was a Side Borg. For someone like West to not be able to catch him he was just incredible. This guy jumped the fence in like one bound and he was gone. I have never seen anyone run that fast. It was scary to talk to someone like that but you know but you have to stay level headed.

You get a lot of people yelling and threatening you and things like that. I learned down the road when you are dealing with a difficult person like that, don’t pull yourself into that situation. The easiest comment is, “Sir, I am sorry you feel that way.” It’s fairly natural. You can try to diffuse the situation as fast as you can. A lot of the time it’s someone that has a lot of liquor. Sometimes it is out of reason. You are not able to calm that person down. A lot of what I say is like, “I will talk to you in the morning.” Or “Come back in the morning and we will talk.” A lot of the time that will happen.

Heather: Time will help. Well he have about 7 more minutes. Are there any stories that you really want to tell?

Jay: Sorry I am just reading Joey's comment there. Heather your hair is epic, it really suits you.

Heather: I like the next one. Joey - Oh and Jay’s is too but which one I don’t know. I can say that as I’m a smooth shave too. Hehe.

Jay: Hey Joey, I like that. Hey I did that so I can walk faster than the other supervisors and managers when I was working.

Heather: So you wouldn’t have the resistance?

Jay: Yeah! It increases your efficiency. You don’t want your hair holding you back all the time. Save on shampoo too.

Heather: My question, what are the most games that you have watched? Have you ever watched 10 games?

Jay: Legally? Well you are not supposed to.

Heather: Oh legally you are not supposed to?

Jay: No. We used to be six. Six was the average. Roulette was three. Baccarat was six. Then it became like – depends on what our high limits tables are right? So if they were low limit you can go up to six. It changed not that long ago that you could watch eight blackjack tables. That would be the max.

There are situations where a smaller casino would combine their pits into a super pit. There would be situations where you are not supposed to have like one supervisor on. The rules are a little bit different. For me, let's say the most I watched legally was eight. Illegally was ten or more. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble here. I mean you're not – the thing with it is that it is so difficult to be a floor supervisor when you are put in that situation. It’s not just that you have to deal with. You have to deal with the player tracking as well. You have a lot on your plate. You are doing your fills, you are opening tables, you have to deal with your dealers and make sure they are where they are supposed to be. If someone is late or missing. It’s really hard to balance that. That is why you learn the most for sure.

The biggest thing about being a floor supervisor is that you have to deal with the situations that are going to come up. Because 100% if there is a difficult citation whether it is a gaming issue or dispute or where a player is becoming aggressive, guess what you are the person that has to go there, right?

I don’t know how much time do you have Heather?

Heather: We have four more minutes.

Jay: I love my time as a floor supervisor. Honestly it is like a stepping stone to management. A couple things about that. You get put into some really crazy situations. Here is one story, I was a floor supervisor and the player had to be cut off. I was like really uncomfortable. What am I supposed to do and worried and everything. You learn so much because the pit manager that I had at the time OMG, he comes up to me and was like, “See that guy over there? You go cut him off.” Okay! This is going to be the first time doing this what do I do? He says, “Don’t worry about it, just say hey sir just want to let you know that this is going to be the last alcohol beverage that we can serve this tonight.” I was like Okay, sounds good. I was all nervous and I go up to him, “Sir I just want to let you know –” He was like “WHAT?!!” I was like ok I am freezing, I need some help. I turn around and I look there is nobody there. The pit manager is gone. I was like where did he go? I see him in the corner where the slot machines are and he is hiding behind there and peeking out. I was like are you serious right now? I ended up doing it. Every time you do it your adrenaline is up here. Once you get used to it you calm down. Eventually you become more natural at it, where it’s like you are talking, “Dude man you have to take it easy here.” You have to be more relatable where it’s like, take it easy, talk to me in the morning where it is a regular. Be like, “Yo man you have had a little too much today. Come back and see me in the morning.” Right? That usually defuses a lot of the situations. Huge learning thing there.

I will give you one more floor supervisor story. And I didn’t tell you this yesterday. It was the first time that I got on the phone. We had our blackjack tables, and we didn’t have didn’t have Lucky Lucky we had Lucky 7’s. So then when someone would get their three 7’s it would be like $500 right? It was such a big thing there and we would get on the phone and be like Hey, the Palace Casino would like to – and then there was a script. We would read this script and be like okay. This is the first time someone get’s 7’s on my pit and I’m like oh no I have to go on the phone. They are like don’t worry the script is there right? It was a busy busy table. We had like eight – no we had six black jack tables and two roulette tables. It was busy full of people. The mall was busy that day. So then I get on the phone and I press the button. I am like, “Okay, Palace Casino would like to congratulate another Lucky 7’s winner payout of $500 congratulations everyone and good from the Palace Casino and my voice cracked so hard on the intercom for the whole casino. I was like hang up the phone and turn around and the whole pit is looking at me laughing. It was the most embarrassing time that I had as a floor supervisor. My voice cracked and it was just so so bad!

Heather: I think that is so awesome! I can relate to you. I have this story to you really quick. Six grade, we are really going back. This is how much this reminded me of this. Six grade and we are doing a test. Everybody is quiet and everyone has their head down. Everyone is doing the test. It is pure silence. Of course my nose is running. So I have to blow my nose. So I go and get up and get the tissue and walk out of the classroom and close the door and I blow my nose. My nose is a horn. It’s loud and it is jarring and it is surprising. It's a freaking horn. So I blew my horn and I look back into the class and every single student in the classroom had stopped doing the test and had turned around and was looking at me through the window. I was like oh shit! Six grade you don’t want to be embarrassed like that in sixth grade. So I feel you!

Jay: I wish I was in six grade. I was like this 20 year old man. Is this guy old enough to be in here? Honestly!

Heather: Look at it this way you could be 50 years old. You could be my old casino manager. My old casino manager in his 50s I’m on Let It Ride. He comes down and he looks at me. He was like what are those for? He was talking about the On Off lammers. He was like why do you have those on the game? I was like, are you serious? You want me to explain why I have this on the game? Okay. It’s Let It Ride, if the light doesn’t work you need the On Off lammer to show the camera the lights – Your the freezing casino manager and you don’t know why the Lammer is on the game? What??

Jay: Oh boy! Yeah no comment on those.

Heather: Thank you so much for listening to me rant. On that note I think we are going to end this. Jay thank you so much for being on and sharing your stories. How can people find you?

Jay: First off thanks for having me Heather. It is an honor. Just from watching you videos from when I was actually managing to now. It’s incredible to be on. You can find me on social media at CasinoDealerJay onTwitter and Instagram. You can find me on the YouTube channel. If you have any questions or you want to share your stories if you are in the industry, or listen to other people stories join the channel. Including Heather’s! It’s amazing.

Heather: Thank you so much!