For the past two decades, I have had the honor of having my column appear in Casino Journal. Over that time, I have tried to maintain two standards with every column I have submitted.

First, I share my best and most candid thinking about gaming industry issues.  Sure, some have suggested my best thinking is sometimes crazy, and that my candor can be a little too candid at times. That’s OK.

Second, I have tried to never give “half-way” information or advice in this column, so readers would be forced to reach out and pay me for the “rest of the solution.”  I have attempted to never sell myself or my company’s services.  I always figured if someone liked my best thinking and the “straight scoop,” well, if they needed help, they might reach out to me.

However, this column is an exception and I apologize upfront for that. I am announcing a new consulting service that I will be providing to the gaming industry, beginning in August, 2018.  So that you don’t get too mad at me, at the same time I am announcing here the entire “secret sauce” for you to do this yourself, at your casino property, right now… if you have crap tables.

I have written numerous times before on revenue building and “guest experience enhancement” opportunities with the game of craps.  My belief is that for small dice game operations (one or two tables), the revenue upside for my “enhanced craps” consulting is annually several hundred thousand dollars, and for large craps businesses, a few million bucks. This will come from leveraging elite crap dealers and their (newly developed) skills, creating marketing opportunities with the current crap games, moving the dice at the proper speed in the crap game, and teaching more players how to play craps.

So welcome to my newest consulting service—Dennis’ Certified Craps Croupiers.  And here is the process by which it will work (again feel free to take the outline and strategy to do this yourself):

• Evaluation—I will come and fully evaluate your craps operations to assess the current culture, player engagement, dealer skill levels, revenue enhancement opportunities, game pace relative to betting patterns, etc.
• Identification of potentially Elite crap dealers—In this second aspect of Dennis’ Certified Craps Croupiers, I will observe and interview all craps dealers to try and identify a potentially “Elite” group of dealers.  I will use supervisory recommendations to a degree, but also observe first-hand how the crap dealers engage players, teach the game, pace the game flow and a variety of other skill-based categories.
• Train the potential Elite crap dealers—This will include training modules on How to Effectively Teach the Game of Craps, The Math of Craps, Moving the Dice at the Right Speed, Selling the Game and How to Invite Players in, Creating Fun at the Table and a variety of other topics.
• Operationalize the Elite crap crew(s)—This involves creating the operations and marketing applications to schedule and promote the Elite crap crew(s).  It may involve adding or loosening bets in the game, adding new procedures to speed up the game (e.g. each player has no more than 10 seconds to shoot the dice), raising the game minimum bets for the elite crew game(s), and creating All new “Rules of Engagement.”
• Follow-up evaluation on the Certified Craps Croupiers—To ensure that “the new way of doing (craps) business around here “is paying off” in increased revenue and guest satisfaction, Certified dealers will subsequently be independently and regularly “shopped.”
• Strategizing on whether there is further opportunity to develop more Certified Craps Croupiers—Although my current belief is that maybe something like 20 percent of current crap dealers have “Certified” potential, I’d be willing to investigate whether that number could be expanded by training, hiring, motivating and other means.

So there you have it, my newest consulting offering.

If you agree with my craps assessment, either take this outline and do it yourself, or get a hold of me starting August, 2018. I am passionate about improving the craps experience, for gaming operators, sure, but more importantly, for players, who I can tell you are being shortchanged by what we currently offer in the game of craps.