The following is an example of how cheating occurs in one setting. Worker solidarity in the casino industry in the USA is induced by the industry’s shared tip structure, in which individual dealers’ tips are pooled together and split evenly among all workers (Sallaz, 2002).

Tipping constitutes 75–85 per cent of a dealer’s income. Because the most experienced dealer’s income was dependent on the tip-making ability of the least experienced and newest of dealers, new workers were ‘taken under the wings’ of veteran dealers and taught the group’s tip-making tactics.

The standard method of tipping is to offer a ‘toke bet’. The player places a smaller side bet ‘for the dealer’ next to his or her own bet before the game begins. If the player wins, the dealer earns a tip, which is deposited in a ‘toke box’ and evenly distributed among all of the dealers at the end of the shift.

The dealer is only tipped when the player wins; otherwise, both bets go to the house. The maximum tips will be made if dealing is fast. Non-tippers are treated rudely and forced off the table. Novice players (who are likely not to know about toke bets and tipping) find that attention will be drawn to the tipping structure by, for example, the dealer thanking a tipper in an exaggerated tone. Having made players aware of the toke system, dealers must make clear that tips are not gratuities or gifts, but rather a fee for service rendered. Dealers might whisper advice to a player, improving the ‘service’. Veteran roulette dealers can, with varying degrees of accuracy and consistency, ‘set the ball down’ in particular numbers by coordinating their spinning of the ball with that of the wheel (Sallaz, 2002).

Dealers have regularly cheated. They might slyly pocket money when supervisors are out of sight or use special shuffling techniques to ‘set the deck’ for a confederate playing at the table (Nelson, 1978). In the past, despotic control managers and owners of casinos have used severe tactics to stop cheating. Owners would walk the floor and monitor workers. If dealers were caught cheating, they were fired on the spot (Binion, 1973; Nelson, 1978). If the cheating was serious, two others would hold  the dealer down; a third ‘goon’ would wield a baseball bat and bring it down on the dealer’s hands, smashing them beyond repair. ‘The dealer was then dragged through the casino, with the blood dripping from his crushed fingers’ (Reid and Demaris, 1963: 52).

Actions designed to stop cheating, with less serious consequences, involved instructing workers never to display emotions while dealing. The advice was to ‘dummy up and deal’ (Solkey, 1980). Talking to players was seen as risky behaviour and seldom necessary. Shuffling machines and multideck shoes served to maximize the speed and security of dealing by eliminating dealer skill and discretion. Electronic surveillance technology is used to monitor workers closely: a black ceiling globe houses a video camera above each table and relays images to a central control room staffed by surveillance specialists.

Even the dealers’ uniforms are designed to maximize security: tight cuffs on long-sleeved shirts ensure that they do not slide chips up their sleeves; aprons prevent them from accessing their pockets while at the tables. (For more examples of surveillance in the gaming industry, see Earley, 2001; Austrin and West, 2005.)

Questions

1. What other examples have you seen of shared tipping?

2. Do individuals try to cheat the system?

3. What other examples of cheating at work have you witnessed, and how have management and workers tried to deal with it?