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Growing up in a strait-laced Southern family, I was always fascinated with casinos. In my twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, I drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. Well, I can tell you that after teaching high school, handling an unruly gambler was a piece of cake. My mother highly disapproved of my working in a casino, "a place so bad it has 'sin' in the middle." I wanted to write the first realistic novel about casino life from the perspective of an experienced table games dealer. I spent the next five years circling the globe for Princess Cruises. Sometimes life exceeds your dreams. I was awed by the wonders of Venice, the fjords of Norway, and the Northern Lights in Leningrad. I returned from ships with a very special souvenir, my Scottish husband Ray. We went to work in Palm Springs. We now live in Hollywood, Florida, where I write about my casino years while wistfully gazing out at the ocean.

THE TOP TEN REASONS TO WORK IN A CASINO

THE TOP TEN REASONS TO WORK IN A CASINO
When I was younger and working at Caesar’s Tahoe, players would sit down at my game and invariably the following question would come up. “What’s a nice girl like you doing working in a joint like this?” I would always look around me where there were rows of dealers just like me, fresh faced recent college grads trying to postpone adulthood as long as we could and Lake Tahoe, (America’s all year playground) is a great place to do it. Over the years at one time or another most of us have left the casino business, but in the end the majority return. So let me tell you the top ten reasons for working in a joint like this.
  1. You get paid for playing games all day. Well you really don’t get paid much; the majority of your money comes from tips. So remember punters there is one person in the casino that wants you to win, and that person is the dealer. Because if you don’t win she won’t make tips and everybody likes to eat. There is nothing more exhilarating than sharing in a big win with a player.
  1. Every casino that I have ever worked in provides health insurance, because we are all going to get carpel tunnel from pitching cards for years.
  1. You can work any shift that you want to. Can’t stand sunlight, you just sign up to work the graveyard shift. A morning person, well day shift is for you. With casinos open 24 / 7, including the holidays there is a perfect shift for everyone. When dealers have children they don’t need child care they just work opposite shifts.
  1. Gambling is a growth industry. With more states and cities in desperate financial straits, they are turning to casinos. Fifty years ago there were casinos only in Nevada now according to Wikipedia there are casinos in 19 states.
  1. You can’t be outsourced. Someone does have to actually pitch those cards on a blackjack game. I know they have been working on perfecting a blackjack machine, but then you might as well just play the slot machines, Table game gamblers don’t trust machines. So we’re safe for awhile.
  1. You can get a job at almost any age. I have seen dealers in their sixties get hired. This is great because at some point most people in the casino get fired. But it is a small enough industry that you probably know someone in management somewhere, and they will juice you into a job.
  1. Free food is a great incentive. Most casinos I’ve worked in have provided free meals and drinks and if they do charge the cost is minimal. If going out to lunch costs $5 a day, then that is like a $25 raise every week. It can get even better, when I lived on a ship I also got free room and board.
  1. You don’t have to buy clothes, because your company will gladly provide you with a uniform. It will be ugly, it will be made of polyester, but it will be free.
  1. You get to live in nice places which is what got me into the business in the first place. Besides Tahoe, I have lived on a cruise ship circling the world and I now live in Palm Springs. My husband has worked in Moscow, London, the Czech Republic and the Bahamas.
  1. You get to meet celebrities. I am just thrilled whenever anyone from General Hospital plays on my game. Well, okay to me they are big celebrities. My husband dealt to Pamela Anderson and Kirk Douglas. Some of them are nice, but you soon realize that the rich and famous aren’t “all that.”
So the next time you play at a table you don’t have to ask, you will already know why that dealer is working there. Read my book Cruise Quarters - A Novel about Casinos and Cruise Ships if you want to find out what it is really like to work in a casino.

My highly rated thriller Casino Queen has been featured at The Big Thrill, Charlotte Reader Podcast and dozens of other publications. Spend some time at the Night Hawk and find out what it is really like to work behind the felt.

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

Her list of enemies grows as she uncovers the underbelly of corruption running through the casino. With her life on the line can she pull out a win?

Click the link below to order at Amazon

Casino Queen at Amazon.com

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

Casino Queen at Barnes & Noble

 

Our first date became our book cover!

You can read Cruise Quarters free at Kindle Unlimited. It is about my years working on a cruise ship and meeting my husband there. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Click the link below to check it out. 

Cruise Quarters Kindle Edition Amazon.com


 


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