Posted on November 27, 2025

The Big Question

Very often we get asked by potential students how they should get started in the industry. I frequently hear stories about people wanting to learn Craps or Roulette and being hit with the “reality check” of how difficult these games are—how they take months to learn and years to master. As someone who personally started their casino career by learning Craps, I disagree with this idea.

When you look around a casino, it’s easy to get distracted by the sheer number of games and variations. You’ll also notice a significantly disproportionate amount of blackjack tables. This leads a lot of people to believe that Blackjack is the game to start with, and that the job will easily follow. It’s true that 90% of casinos require dealers to deal Blackjack, but something new dealers might not realize is that casinos don’t hire dealers with only one game under their belt. With the variety of games available, they’re not eager to employ one-trick ponies. Many casinos nowadays require dealers to know at least three card games—unless you know a specialty game such as Craps, Roulette, or Pai Gow Tiles.

Blackjack is one of the easiest games to follow, since just about everyone can count to 21. Most people have played it or at least have a basic idea of the rules. This makes Blackjack an appealing first game, but the truth is that you can start with almost any game and find it just as easy, if not easier, to learn. When we learn in school, we practice concepts rather than memorizing every possible answer. Sure, it’s good to know your times tables, but you can’t memorize every solution to every problem. Instead, we learn the concept of multiplication so we can apply it broadly and efficiently. Table-games education works the same way: instead of learning only Blackjack, we learn the concepts the game uses, which gives us a deeper understanding of how to deal it. Those concepts then apply to many other games, making the idea of learning three games far less daunting.

With that in mind, the more concepts a game uses, the more challenging it is to deal—though never impossible. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone start with the most complex games like Craps or Roulette, but I also dislike the idea that these games are “impossible” to learn unless you’ve dealt simpler games first.

Many people are infatuated with Craps—it's fast-paced, exciting, and can be far more engaging than a calmer, slower game like Blackjack or Pai Gow. It’s true that Craps is challenging for beginners, but that difficulty comes from its concepts, not from your math ability or memory. If you’re not a very hard worker or prefer a laid-back learning pace, then starting with Blackjack or Baccarat is a good idea because the process will be easier and more enjoyable. But if you’re passionate about learning and willing to put in the effort, taking on a difficult game like Craps or Roulette can be a much more rewarding experience and will actually make you more proficient in other games. Like I said: it’s all about the concepts, and the more concepts you understand, the easier it becomes to apply them to any game in the casino.

As ever, 

Michael