Don't turn your back on the gamblers. Keep your hands on the table. Give the players verbal cues. Let the “eye in the sky” surveillance camera see what's happening at all times. The 330 potential poker, blackjack, craps and roulette dealers undergoing training at West Virginia Northern Community College are getting plenty of instruction. And they're doing plenty of mock gambling of their own, too. What the many people enrolled in West Virginia’s newest school all have in common is just this. They all want to be casino table dealers.
West Virginia Community College began offering these classes two weeks ago, when it partnered up with Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center, and new courses will begin next week at Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort for students closer to that facility. Both casinos feel that partnering up with the colleges will supply them with new blood, new employees, and will give them both a chance to give back to the community.
More than 1,000 new jobs are expected to be added to the area in the coming future, mostly in the gaming industry, with potential incomes of thirty five, to forty thousand dollars a year, the majority of it from tips. That kind of money beats most other employment opportunities in the area. By September 1, , both West Virginia panhandle racetrack/casinos want to begin operating poker rooms with blackjack, roulette and other casino games being added later on. All that cannot happen without people to run the whole thing.
To this end, a vacant building in downtown wheeling has been converted into a gambling school, where instructors who are to be appointed table supervisors at Wheeling Island are teaching newbies how to flick roulette balls, and other deft maneuvers. They are learning how to become dealers. All agree that the most difficult game for the dealer to oversee is without a doubt the craps table. In craps, many different players crowd around the table, and several different factors go into the winnings of any one of them. It requires eight weeks of 20-hours-a-week training, twice as much as for the other games.
"I posed a question about using a calculator, and got laughed down," confided Greta Leas, 27, of Steubenville, Ohio, one of the youngest students and no math whiz. She has a marketing background, and has been told that the best way for a newcomer to advance to casino management is to learn how to run a craps table. Competitive laughter and jousting were the norm among the men and women starting the craps course, as they practiced paying off patrons efficiently. That training is on top of the just-completed, two-week, all-game introductory course, with the full tuition costing $600.
In fact, an outgoing nature seemed the most common trait among the student body hoping to be hired at Wheeling Island. It's loaded with self-described "people persons," whose chances for employment are good if they pass a casino audition and criminal background check after completing the course.
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