“The thrill of dealing had long ago evaporated, and I realised that there was nothing in the world more boring than going through the motions of playing a game of chance when you have no possibility of winning or losing…”Anonymous
For about nine months, in 1989, I was a croupier. I wasn’t there for any longer, because I wasn’t very good at it. Don’t get me wrong; I could do the seventeen times table, and clear everything out in the right order. I could work out payouts – sometimes before my inspector – and finished off with a textbook clean-hands gesture at the end of my shift, with a Paul Daniels-style finger-waggle thrown in. And my chipping-up and stack-pushing were immaculate. But I was, to use the parlance of the inspector and pit boss class, chaff. Not in it for the long run. No temperament for the job requirement.
So I wasn’t surprised when I arrived at my shift one afternoon to be told I was needed in the office, right away, for a bollocking. I wasn’t told why, and I couldn’t think why. Because it could have been anything. During my brief time there, I had been reprimanded for the following;
- Being crap at fanning out the cards on the blackjack table at the beginning of the day shift, until they looked like a terrorist explosion in the Queen of Hearts’ barracks
- Being caught by an inspector giving a little fist-pump when I cleared a roulette table heaving with chips without having to pay anyone out
- The gormless smirk I couldn’t help whenever that nightclub bouncer who used to come in would have a screaming fit when he lost a quid on the blackjack
- Being introduced to a new member by my pit boss, who asked me how to play blackjack, and responding; “Are you taking the piss?”
- Being caught pushing the dealing shoe around the blackjack table like a Tonka toy, while making skidding noises
- Being consistently unable to stop calling blackjack ‘Pontoon’.
I assumed it was any, or all of them, and had my defences ready. I was naturally cack-handed. They knew that. The shoe did look a bit like a Tonka Toy (actually, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw a Tesla Cybertruck). The thrill of dealing had long ago evaporated, and I realised that there was nothing in the world more boring than going through the motions of playing a game of chance when you have no possibility of winning or losing anything – although having said that, I went on to work a part-time job at a bookies, and until then I had no idea what actual, genuine tedium was.
Oh, and the clientele were the absolute scum of the earth, who would call you a cunt in nine different languages every night (although the Chinese punters were classier; they would just tell you that hoped you were going to die in the street), and I was the only dealer in the place who hadn’t been punched in the face yet. I’d become very philosophical about the punters; after all, it wasn’t the Gaming Board, or the casino owners, or their own recklessness that was scraping their chips off the table and gleefully shoving them down the hole; it was a nineteen year-old twat in a black polyester waistcoat with a satin paisley pattern that made him look like a pallbearer at Timmy Mallett’s funeral who was on eight grand a year, with no tips, who just wanted to get his shift done and go to the pub. No wonder they hated me. No wonder I hated them, and fantasised about tipping over a roulette table onto them. Or decapitating them with a casually-flicked, razor-tipped shoe divider.
I was ushered into the office. It looked even shabbier than the staff room.
“So, about your shift yesterday.”
“Mm.”
“Tell me what you did. Near the end.”
I tried to think back to the day’s fun. Well, it was a Monday day shift, so I would have desecrated four packs of cards on the blackjack table, and then stood there behind it like a twat for the good part of an hour, waiting for someone to turn up, then I would have sat on a battered sofa that reeked of fags and watched ten minutes of Take The High Road in the staff room. Then I went out and stood behind a roulette table, and got bollocked by my inspector for doing nothing, and then bollocked some more for saying there wasn’t actually anyone at my table, and told to practice chipping up. And then back to the staff room, and over and over and over. And then…oh yeah, I remember now. I span the number 14 three times in a row on the roulette.
“Yes, you did”
“I know. That was mad, wasn’t it?”
And it was. Span the wheel…14. Someone had a chip on it. I paid him out, and he left a few on it. Span the wheel again…14. Paid him out again. Inspector has a word, tells me to speed the wheel up, to the dismay of the punters, who have peeled off other tables and throwing down whatever notes they have on and around number 14…and I close my eyes and flick the ball harder than I’ve ever dared, and the bastard number 14 comes up again. Pandemonium. And obviously, my boss wants to tell me the company newsletter wants to take a photo of me, or I’m getting a scroll.
“Well, that’s what you’re here for. Someone walked out over three thousand pounds up yesterday. Not to mention all the other payouts.”
“I know. Wasn’t it mental?”
“I don’t think you realise what I’m getting at. Do you know that person?”
Hang on…does he think I actually meant to do that? Doesn’t he realise that if I could deliberately pull that out of my arse that I’d be linking up with the Mafia and helping to take down Vegas, instead of malingering in a provincial casino that played Shakin’ Stevens over the tannoy? Isn’t he going to bring up the time when I took ten grand off the boss of the local triads, when he dumped off £25 chips all over the table bar two numbers, and I got those two numbers twice on the bounce?
“No, I don’t.“
Of course I fucking didn’t know him. Why would I? Why would I want to know any of them? I knew how much money they lost every night: it would be taken out of the tables at the end of the night shift, and piled up for us to have to count out.
“I don’t know him. And I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Well…I’m obliged to issue a warning, and if it happens again, we may have to take action, so, er… yes. Back to work.”
By the end of the shift, I’d put my notice in. It was less to do with the fact that I was terrified of doing something with odds of approximately 54,872 to 1, or my table being absolutely swarmed by punters who were asking if I had a button under the table that activated a magnet; it was more to do with the mentalist bouncer losing another quid on the blackjack, grabbing my wrist, and describing to me the route I took every night home to the letter, and explaining that if he ever chanced across me on that route, he’d stab me.
The fun had stopped. So I stopped, too.
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