A relative of mine is planning to move to Vegas and go to school to learn to be a blackjack dealer. How secure do you think this profession
is? Are we looking at a day when most of them will be replaced by computers?
Sorry, but we're looking at a not-too-distant future when blackjack dealers will go the way of elevator and switchboard operators, bowling-pin setters, town criers, and wagon-wheel makers.
All dealers, not just blackjack, are already in the process of being replaced by electronic table games (ETGs) and stadium games, in which a single dealer on a central podium deals to a "stadium" full of players at individual screens; some stadiums can handle as many as 50 players. The Venetian, for example, has a stadium with 44 positions.
Don't take our word for it. The first chapter of a new book coming out in the next couple of months, The Smart Table Revolution ("Smart" being the equivalent of "dealer-less"), is titled "The Disappearing Dealer." The author, a long-time director of table games on the Gulf Coast, explains that three "relentless" forces converged to lead to the obsolescence of live dealers: labor shortages, rising costs, and changing player expectations.
"During COVID, the dealer pipeline collapsed. People left the industry and didn’t come back. New hires were harder to come by and even harder to train. Everyone wanted more money, more flexibility, and fewer midnight shifts. Those who stayed found themselves doing more with less. Dealers' time on the game stretched from 60 to 80 minutes."
He goes on to elaborate about rising costs. "Labor makes up more than half of any table games director’s budget. But aside from the savings, ETGs don’t call in on a Saturday night when we’re desperately trying to spread tables, they don’t need regular breaks, and perhaps most importantly in the current hiring environment, we don’t need to train them for years before they can deal a jam-up roulette
or dice game."
Finally, there's the issue of player expectations. "The average guest is now younger, more tech-savvy, and far less interested in the social rituals of the traditional pit games. They grew up pressing buttons and their chit-chat takes place mostly on Chat. Playing on machines
means lower minimums and judgment-free betting, so that's where they naturally gravitate."
So you can blame the pandemic. "With dealers scarce and many new players willing to interact with advancing technology, change had to come. ETGs had been quietly building momentum for years; the pandemic didn’t create them, but the conditions of COVID allowed
them to explode in popularity."
And they're not going away anytime soon. Entire casinos are switching over to ETGs, the Golden Gate downtown one of many. That puts dealers, some with decades of experience, not only out of work, but competing for fewer and fewer jobs.
And here's another wrinkle that might not be immediately discernible. Break-in dealers jobs at, for example, low-limit grind joints have already pretty much disappeared. Gone are the $1-minimum and $2-minimum tables where a casino could train a dealer fresh out of school without having to worry too much about mistakes.
None of this is to say that the dealer will be extinct anytime soon. But in terms of job security and growth potential? ETGs and stadium games will, eventually, render live dealers as superannuated as modern medicine rendered leech farmers.
