Online college courses are becoming more and more popular and certainly they offer great flexibility for the student and often great value for the college. It’s often easier to find and hire an online instructor who can work from anywhere to teach a course than it is to bring an instructor to the college. And certainly some classes which are based more on reading and understanding theory can work well without requiring classroom attendance. Though a lot of responsibility is placed on the student to keep up with the course work and study since there is no actual classroom time.
So, what does this have to do with casinos? Well, it seems some US colleges have started offering online training courses for casino dealers. I’m just not sure the online concept really works here. Oh, yes, there is work a student can do at home or online when it comes to understanding theory or memorizing odds. But what some people may not realize is that dealers for games such as poker and blackjack actually have to audition for the job. And there is more to it than just knowing the rules of the games. Yes, of course you have to know the rules. But you also have to know how to handle the cards, the chips, the customers. This isn’t practice that a student will really get playing on a computer. It’s more something that would be considered a “lab course” if it were a regular college course. Remember lab courses? Usually they were classes like biology or chemistry. Can you imagine the reaction if colleges actually offered Poker and Blackjack dealing as a lab course?