OK, on a busy (for graveyard shift) craps game the other night, a player who had lost a fair amount of money let fly with, shall we say, a colorful vocabulary. Not directed at me, or any of the other dealers, or even the players. Actually, he was swearing at the dice. People do that sometimes. My boxman said, “Sir, watch your language, there are ladies present.”
I looked around. No female players. The only other female craps dealer on the shift had the night off. That left… me. I thought it was a bit sexist of him, to assume my little ears would bleed if somebody said a bad word, but I held my peace.
Last night, on a dead game, the other girl on the crew and I were talking about the fact that life is basically rougher on female craps dealers than it is on the men. We seem to not pass probation because of “having bad attitudes” at a higher rate than they do. I once lost a job after 30 days of being the only female dealer on the shift (swing, when all tables were open) allegedly for precisely this reason. A floorman had falsely claimed that I would get upset when corrected or given constructive criticism. There are a couple of casinos in town that flat out refuse to hire women dice dealers. She told me that about a year before I worked there, she was told by a floorman at the same casino that “we don’t hire women craps dealers”. Yeah, in the '90’s.
The boxman finished up his paperwork, wandered back from the podium and basically told us, “You haven’t earned the right to be here yet.” Now, this boxman is a great guy, doesn’t seem to have any sexist leanings, but he’s been in the business long enough to remember when “female craps dealer” was an oxymoron. He then related a story of an incident that happened at a casino he had previously worked at. Apparently two female craps dealers had filed a “hostile work environment” claim because players were being allowed to swear at the table. As far as I could tell, this was not verbal abuse directed at the dealers (nobody, male or female, should have to be abused by customers.) It was just the normal, saying “fuck” or “shit” when the seven out came before anyone had a chance to at least win back what they had bet. Actually, it’s been my experience that very few craps players abuse the dealers, because it’s hard to find a way to blame the dealer if you’re losing. If anyone gets sworn at on the game, it’s usually that idiot player who suddenly decides he needs to make a make a bet after the dice have been thrown, and they hit his/her hands as he/she is setting the money down and “seven-out”. Blackjack dealers take more abuse from customers because players are convinced that the dealer is shuffling the cards a certain way to keep the good hands on the dealer’s side, but I’m in danger of hijacking myself.
Anyhoo, we’ve got overly sensitive chicks running to H.R. because a player said a bad word and the box- or floorman didn’t tell him to watch his language. Boo fucking hoo. Get over it.
We women are having a hard enough time proving we can handle ourselves dealing a game that, until the last decade or so, was almost exclusively dealt by men. Craps is a rough game, craps players are a rough crowd. If you can’t cope with people throwing around a few four-letter words when they lose their money YOU DON’T NEED TO BE DEALING CRAPS!
A lot of male dealers resent having us girls around. There is a perception that casinos give preferential treatment to girl dice dealers. In my experience, that hasn’t been the case. I imagine there are about as many joints that give preference to girl craps dealers as ones that refuse to hire us. What seems to be more usual is that they try to find an excuse to dump us during probation, because they don’t want to have to deal with some teary-eyed, thin-skinned, politically correct, airheaded twit running off filing paperwork everytime her finer sensibilities get offended.
Also, I’ve had more than one perfectly nice floorman start to reward me for a job well done with a pat on the back or quick shoulder rub, then suddenly realize what he’s doing and jerk his hand away and mumble something about sexual harassment… (hell, you should see the look of horror on a boxman’s face when he goes to hand me out a stack of higher-denomination chips while I’m leaned over the table paying bets and his hand accidentally brushes my bodacious tata. It’s just precious.)I tell them, look, I don’t play that, don’t be afraid to touch me, but you know there’s always going to be that one psycho bitch who’s going to run to Human Resources… And there are cameras everywhere in a casino, so they’ll have the “unwanted touching” on videotape. I’m sure sexual harassment goes on in this, as in any other, industry, but I haven’t encountered it yet.
I have a tough row to hoe, here, bitch. Don’t make it any tougher on me. Go find a nice, quiet, secretarial job somewhere and leave dealing craps to those of us who can deal with craps players.
