Run a table game for eight hours. Weeks of training, a state background check, and most of your pay comes from tips.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$34,320
New dealer, quiet house
$24,040
High limit or a busy resort
$77,090
The national median is $34,320 a year and the bottom tenth are near $24,040. Those figures already include tips, because the federal wage survey counts tips as wages. The gap between the middle and the top tenth at $77,090 is almost entirely about which casino you work in and which shift you get.
Close to minimum wage
Your hourly rate is the floor, not the job
Tips, called tokes, are usually pooled across every dealer on shift and split by hours worked. That means a busy Saturday night carries the whole crew, and a dead Tuesday pays almost nothing extra.
$77,090 and up
Top tenth: high limit rooms and big Las Vegas and Atlantic City properties
The dealers earning this are on the games that take the biggest bets, on the best shifts, at the busiest houses. It takes years of seniority to get that schedule.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a casino that runs its own free training class in exchange for you working there afterwards, so you pay only the state gaming registration with its fingerprinting and background check, plus a uniform and shoes. The high end is a private dealer school teaching you two or three games over a few weeks at a few hundred dollars up to about $2,000, plus the same licence and uniform. This is one of the cheapest entries on the whole site and you can be dealing for money inside three months, but the free training is tied to one property and a specific shift, so the cheap door comes with strings.
This is one of the cheapest paths on this site. No degree, no student loans, and you can be dealing for money inside three months. Community colleges in gaming states sometimes run the same training for in-state tuition.
Hourly base
Set by the casino, usually at or a little above the state minimum wage.
The toke pool
Tips split across the crew. At most properties this is the majority of your income.
Shift differentials
Swing and graveyard shifts often pay a little more, and are easier to get as a new dealer.
Overtime and holidays
Casinos never close. New Year's Eve and big fight weekends are the best money of the year.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
No degree, no apprenticeship. You learn one game, audition, and get hired.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Finish it. Also practice mental arithmetic until payouts are automatic, because you will not use a calculator at a table.
Dealer school or a casino class
1 to 3 months
Four to twelve weeks per game. Almost everybody starts with blackjack or a carnival game, because they are the quickest to learn.
Apply for your gaming credential
Weeks to a few months
Every gaming state screens you before you can work: fingerprints, a background check and a registration, permit or license depending on the state.
Audition
One shift
You deal a live game in front of a pit boss while they watch your hands, your speed and your errors. This is the real interview.
Break in and add games
1 to 3 years
Start on the quiet shift on the easy games. Learn craps and roulette next, because that is where the better schedules are.
Math
Every payout is arithmetic you do out loud, fast, while people watch and argue.
Public speaking or drama
You are on stage for eight hours. Being pleasant while losing someone's money is a performed skill.
A second language
High limit rooms in Las Vegas run on Mandarin, Spanish and Korean.
Physical education
You stand still for 40 minutes at a time, then do it again. Your feet and back decide how long you last.
This is a genuinely regulated job. In Nevada the Gaming Control Board handles registration, licensing and enforcement for everyone working in gaming. In Pennsylvania the Gaming Control Board issues permits to gaming and non-gaming casino employees and runs the background investigations. New Jersey licenses casino employees through its own state agency, and tribal casinos are regulated by their tribe's gaming commission. The details differ, the pattern does not: fingerprints, a criminal history check and a financial check before you touch a chip. In most states you also have to be 21 to work on a casino floor at all.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Craps
The hardest game to learn and the one that separates career dealers from break-ins. Crews are paid accordingly.
Roulette
Fast payouts in your head, on a layout covered in chips of five different colors.
Baccarat and pai gow
The high limit games, especially in Las Vegas. Big tokes, quiet rooms, serious players.
Poker
A different world: you deal the game but the house does not play, and you are tipped per pot.
Dual rate
Part dealer, part floor supervisor. The usual first step off the table and into management.
A clean record
The background check is the real gate. Certain convictions, especially theft or gambling offenses, will end it.
Good shoes and good hands
Repetitive strain in the wrists and shoulders is the most common dealer injury.
A poker face for rudeness
People lose money in front of you and some of them blame you out loud.
Flexibility about shifts
New dealers get graveyard, weekends and holidays. Everyone does.
Cruise lines and casinos in Macau, Singapore and the Caribbean hire experienced dealers, usually on contracts of six to nine months with room and board included. The pay can be better than a regional American casino and you save most of it because you are not paying rent. The trade-off is being away from home for most of a year, working seven days a week while the ship is at sea, and living in a cabin below the waterline with a roommate.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Clock in, check the schedule, and take a table mid-hand from the dealer you are relieving. You deal for about 40 minutes, then get 20 minutes off, over and over for eight hours. On a good table you are chatting, paying bets, watching for people trying to add chips after the cards fall, and keeping the game moving. On a bad one you are alone at an empty layout at 4am, shuffling to nobody. Cameras watch every hand. At the end you count out, and the toke pool gets divided.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
In American casinos a tip to a dealer is a toke. At most properties tokes go into a pool split across every dealer on shift, so nobody is fighting over a generous player and nobody has a reason to favor one.
Every table is filmed from above continuously, and the recordings are kept. Dealers are trained to clear their hands and show empty palms when they leave a table so the camera has a clean record.
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board says it regulates casino and internet gambling in the state at no cost to taxpayers, because the industry it oversees pays for it.
The federal career profile rates dealing below average for new opportunities and expects the number of jobs to fall. Electronic table games and fewer live tables per casino floor are the reason.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.