A little over a year ago, I can remember a bit of a scare where poker dealers were fearing for their jobs. Was it the economy that had them shook? A drop in the level of participation in online poker? No, it was none of the above. Instead, it was a fear that automated poker tables would slowly steal jobs away from all of the workers at online casinos.
And this was definitely a legitimate fear too since automated tables have several advantages over tables with live dealers. For one thing, there isn’t going to be any mistakes in the deal unless an automated table breaks down. Another advantage is that more hands can be played at an automated table since they deal faster than live dealers. One more big thing is that an automated table won’t bitch about tips either when they’re not being given which may delight players more than anything.
However, people in major casinos haven’t been delighted by automated machines at all really as can be seen by the fact that yet another major casino in Las Vegas’ Excalibur took out their automated machines recently. The reason given is that customers admitted that they would much rather play at a table with a live dealer than at one with a computer screen shuffling their cards.
I think another main reason for this is that casinos are finding out that automated poker tables just aren’t as big of money makers as slot machines. Whatever the case is, I’m definitely a fan of the live dealers and can dealing with the gripes about tips as long as the live experience is still there.