Chapter 2
Common Tasks
Sweat Sheet Table Cards
Running Down The Games
In the beginning of your shift, before you get to your section, there are some things that need to be done. Of course, these things vary from casino to casino but let’s touch on some things that are common to most. First you need to make sure that you are punched/signed in before you get distracted. The next thing might be to set out the dealer’s sign-in sheet and toke sheets for the dealers on your shift. Make sure there is also a pen or two with them.
Next comes checking with the outgoing pit or shift boss to find out if there are any call-ins, if there are any players on the MTL (log for players that have bought in over $3000) or any players that are winning big. Since you are now aware of the call-ins, you need to find the new dealer’s roadmap (daily schedule) for your shift and make corrections as needed. Sometimes there is a log to record call-ins that also needs to be completed or sometimes it is merely a matter of indicating call-ins on the weekly schedule.
Some casinos keep a specific total amount of the number of decks of playing cards between the games and the card cabinet so missing decks will be quickly noticed. If this is the case you need to get a piece of paper and count the number of decks that are in each pit. I write these down separately by pit so in case I screw up, someone might be able to quickly spot my mistake. You then write down the number of decks in the new card cabinet (replacement decks count as a full deck) and then write down the number of cards in the used card cabinet. After insuring your total reflects the correct number of decks (or informing the out-going bosses that it doesn’t) you sometimes record the total in a card log.
At the risk of sounding like the casino Zen master, the Tao (essence) of supervision is getting in touch with your powers of observation. I utilize this time of day to focus my attention on my surroundings and observe as much as I can. A partial list of things you can look for are:
How many games are open and do you have enough dealers coming in to cover them? Are there enough games open to take care of the business, or do you need to open more or perhaps adjust the table minimums? Speaking of the table minimums, are they set the way your shift will want them or do they need to be changed? What about the players, are there any that appear to be too drunk, young or rowdy? Do you see any familiar faces? Perhaps now would be a good time to say hello to them. How much money is on the layouts? Which are the grind games and where are the BP’s (big players)? How clean is the pit area? Are there ashtrays to be emptied, glasses to be collected or chairs to be straightened? Maybe you need to call a casino porter?
If you didn’t already know your pit assignment and what floorperson you were sending home or on break: someone has probably broken the reverie of your focusing exercise by now and told you where to go.
Checking in to your section.
Of course the floorperson you are relieving is anxious to leave but you need to confer with him/her on some important issues and the best way is to greet him in cordial fashion and then be prepared to listen. They will probably brief you on a game by game basis and the questions he will be anticipating are: How much are the players in and how much in checks have they gone south with or cashed out? Are any games losing a lot of money? Are any players on the MTL or are likely to reach that level? Has surveillance been notified for big action on any games? Are there any games in danger of running out of checks and have fills been ordered? Where are the assholes and what kind of problems have they been causing? Has he told the cocktail waitress to cut anyone off? Have any new policies been implemented today or has the shift boss given specific instructions for a particular situation?
Now depending on the custom or policy of the casino, the outgoing floorperson will either wait for you to check the “chip tracking sheet” (what I call “sweat sheet”) against the floats (racks) or just leave. At any rate I will now give you the fundamentals of using the sweat sheet and or table card to monitor the status of your games.
Learning to use a sweat sheet and or table card:
The difference between a table card and a sweat sheet is a table card is located on each game and a sweat sheet is held by the floorperson. The sweat sheet consolidates all games in your section. Some casinos use a sweat sheet for card games and a table card for craps. Others simply use table cards for all games and don't use sweat sheets. In this section I will refer to the use of sweat sheets. The basic principle applies to both as illustrated below.
The first thing you need to know in order to make sense of the sweat sheet is how casino executives count. One thousand isn’t written as “1000” it is written as “1.0” so “.1” is one hundred. Thus “28,700” would be “28.7” The second thing you need to know is that many numbers are rounded to the nearest one hundred dollars. Some supervisors call fifty dollars or less zero and fifty-one dollars or more becomes one hundred. Myself, fifty and up is a hundred.
A sweat sheet is created by the floorperson while the out-going and in-coming shift bosses take the count at the shift change. The floorperson for that section will follow the shift managers from game to game and write down the amounts they call out for each denomination at the top of the column for that denomination. The floorperson will then write the total of the bankroll just under the game number.
At this time the floorperson will also take note of how much each player has sitting in front of him so he can close out the player’s rating card for the old shift and start a new rating card for each player for the new shift, with the amount of checks they had at the count. I will be discussing this at length later in the section on rating cards.
The floorman will then write the total of the drop for each game at the bottom of the drop section of the old sweat sheet and turn it in to the in-coming pit or shift boss after the count has been completed.
The sweat sheet and table card has three basic functions:
1.) To protect the casino from theft by the dealers because the floorperson will always know how many checks should be on the game.
2.) To give the floorperson a tool that enables him/her to know how many checks a player has won from the rack. This is especially true if the player is going south with the checks or cashing them out during play. When a player leaves checks on the table and cashes out checks at the cage, the floorperson will never take the checks off of the sheet until the player quits and the floorperson is closing out their rating card.
3.) To give the floorperson a tool that enables him/her to be able to “run down” their game so they knows how much it is winning or losing. While of course this may well have to do with the casino’s upper management or that floorperson sweating the money, a good floorperson should always know how much a table is losing and which players have the chips.
Next comes checking with the outgoing pit or shift boss to find out if there are any call-ins, if there are any players on the MTL (log for players that have bought in over $3000) or any players that are winning big. Since you are now aware of the call-ins, you need to find the new dealer’s roadmap (daily schedule) for your shift and make corrections as needed. Sometimes there is a log to record call-ins that also needs to be completed or sometimes it is merely a matter of indicating call-ins on the weekly schedule.
Some casinos keep a specific total amount of the number of decks of playing cards between the games and the card cabinet so missing decks will be quickly noticed. If this is the case you need to get a piece of paper and count the number of decks that are in each pit. I write these down separately by pit so in case I screw up, someone might be able to quickly spot my mistake. You then write down the number of decks in the new card cabinet (replacement decks count as a full deck) and then write down the number of cards in the used card cabinet. After insuring your total reflects the correct number of decks (or informing the out-going bosses that it doesn’t) you sometimes record the total in a card log.
At the risk of sounding like the casino Zen master, the Tao (essence) of supervision is getting in touch with your powers of observation. I utilize this time of day to focus my attention on my surroundings and observe as much as I can. A partial list of things you can look for are:
How many games are open and do you have enough dealers coming in to cover them? Are there enough games open to take care of the business, or do you need to open more or perhaps adjust the table minimums? Speaking of the table minimums, are they set the way your shift will want them or do they need to be changed? What about the players, are there any that appear to be too drunk, young or rowdy? Do you see any familiar faces? Perhaps now would be a good time to say hello to them. How much money is on the layouts? Which are the grind games and where are the BP’s (big players)? How clean is the pit area? Are there ashtrays to be emptied, glasses to be collected or chairs to be straightened? Maybe you need to call a casino porter?
If you didn’t already know your pit assignment and what floorperson you were sending home or on break: someone has probably broken the reverie of your focusing exercise by now and told you where to go.
Checking in to your section.
Of course the floorperson you are relieving is anxious to leave but you need to confer with him/her on some important issues and the best way is to greet him in cordial fashion and then be prepared to listen. They will probably brief you on a game by game basis and the questions he will be anticipating are: How much are the players in and how much in checks have they gone south with or cashed out? Are any games losing a lot of money? Are any players on the MTL or are likely to reach that level? Has surveillance been notified for big action on any games? Are there any games in danger of running out of checks and have fills been ordered? Where are the assholes and what kind of problems have they been causing? Has he told the cocktail waitress to cut anyone off? Have any new policies been implemented today or has the shift boss given specific instructions for a particular situation?
Now depending on the custom or policy of the casino, the outgoing floorperson will either wait for you to check the “chip tracking sheet” (what I call “sweat sheet”) against the floats (racks) or just leave. At any rate I will now give you the fundamentals of using the sweat sheet and or table card to monitor the status of your games.
Learning to use a sweat sheet and or table card:
The difference between a table card and a sweat sheet is a table card is located on each game and a sweat sheet is held by the floorperson. The sweat sheet consolidates all games in your section. Some casinos use a sweat sheet for card games and a table card for craps. Others simply use table cards for all games and don't use sweat sheets. In this section I will refer to the use of sweat sheets. The basic principle applies to both as illustrated below.
The first thing you need to know in order to make sense of the sweat sheet is how casino executives count. One thousand isn’t written as “1000” it is written as “1.0” so “.1” is one hundred. Thus “28,700” would be “28.7” The second thing you need to know is that many numbers are rounded to the nearest one hundred dollars. Some supervisors call fifty dollars or less zero and fifty-one dollars or more becomes one hundred. Myself, fifty and up is a hundred.
A sweat sheet is created by the floorperson while the out-going and in-coming shift bosses take the count at the shift change. The floorperson for that section will follow the shift managers from game to game and write down the amounts they call out for each denomination at the top of the column for that denomination. The floorperson will then write the total of the bankroll just under the game number.
At this time the floorperson will also take note of how much each player has sitting in front of him so he can close out the player’s rating card for the old shift and start a new rating card for each player for the new shift, with the amount of checks they had at the count. I will be discussing this at length later in the section on rating cards.
The floorman will then write the total of the drop for each game at the bottom of the drop section of the old sweat sheet and turn it in to the in-coming pit or shift boss after the count has been completed.
The sweat sheet and table card has three basic functions:
1.) To protect the casino from theft by the dealers because the floorperson will always know how many checks should be on the game.
2.) To give the floorperson a tool that enables him/her to know how many checks a player has won from the rack. This is especially true if the player is going south with the checks or cashing them out during play. When a player leaves checks on the table and cashes out checks at the cage, the floorperson will never take the checks off of the sheet until the player quits and the floorperson is closing out their rating card.
3.) To give the floorperson a tool that enables him/her to be able to “run down” their game so they knows how much it is winning or losing. While of course this may well have to do with the casino’s upper management or that floorperson sweating the money, a good floorperson should always know how much a table is losing and which players have the chips.
All entries following the initial openers are always written in pencil. And changed when a player leaves and his rating card is closed. The most crucial time to update the sweat sheet is when the game goes dead. There is no excuse for a sweat sheet being wrong on a dead game! If a player were to land on that table, it would be impossible to know how many checks he might take off of the game.
When adding checks for a fill or removing them for a credit, the new amount is circled to indicate that the change was due to a fill or credit. The total amount for a fill is written in it’s own column and the amount is added to the “opener” (the amount the rack started with at the beginning of the shift).
When making adjustments for a credit, the amount of the credit is listed with the fills but with a minus sign “-“ or brackets “< >” and can also be written in red ink.
Checking your racks at the beginning of your shift (or anytime for that matter).
So I have just sent Joe home and I now plan to check the racks. I will have my sweat sheet, a notepad and a pencil. I start with BJ-1 partly because it is a dead game and partly because I am saving BJ-10 for last because there is a good deal of action there and I want to be finished with my other games.
When adding checks for a fill or removing them for a credit, the new amount is circled to indicate that the change was due to a fill or credit. The total amount for a fill is written in it’s own column and the amount is added to the “opener” (the amount the rack started with at the beginning of the shift).
When making adjustments for a credit, the amount of the credit is listed with the fills but with a minus sign “-“ or brackets “< >” and can also be written in red ink.
Checking your racks at the beginning of your shift (or anytime for that matter).
So I have just sent Joe home and I now plan to check the racks. I will have my sweat sheet, a notepad and a pencil. I start with BJ-1 partly because it is a dead game and partly because I am saving BJ-10 for last because there is a good deal of action there and I want to be finished with my other games.
I start by checking the checks in the rack compared to what it says I should have on my sheet. The sheet says 4.6 black and that is what is in the rack. The sheet says 1.6 green and I only have 1.4. On a $1000 limit game like this, that isn’t such a large mistake that I need to call my pit manager. I will merely change the sheet to 1.4 green. The red checks are right on the money but the silver is probably closer to .1 than it is to .2
I change the sheet to read .1 in silver then I write down the amounts on the notepad and add them up.
4.6
1.4
1.2 (For purposes of run-down I usually combine red & silver ($1)
7.2 This is the total of the rack.
5.2 The drop
12.4 The total assets of BJ-1
10.0 This is the opener plus the fill, what some people call the “need.”
+2.4 / 5.2 These are the only two numbers you would present to your boss for a rundown of BJ-1 to indicate the table is winning $2400 out of a $5200 drop.
I change the sheet to read .1 in silver then I write down the amounts on the notepad and add them up.
4.6
1.4
1.2 (For purposes of run-down I usually combine red & silver ($1)
7.2 This is the total of the rack.
5.2 The drop
12.4 The total assets of BJ-1
10.0 This is the opener plus the fill, what some people call the “need.”
+2.4 / 5.2 These are the only two numbers you would present to your boss for a rundown of BJ-1 to indicate the table is winning $2400 out of a $5200 drop.
-3.6 /.9 On this game I am missing $100 black, $150 green, $400 red and $100 in silver. But before I go changing the sheet I need to look at the layout and see what the one player on this game has. I see he has $100 in black, $150 in green and $100 in red. That means I’m still missing $300 in red and about $100 in silver. Before I change the sheet I need to look at the player’s rating card to make sure that the checks on the layout that I assume are the ones I’m missing, weren’t in reality brought with him. Nope, he’s in $100 cash, so I will take $300 red and $100 off of the sheet.
4.6
2.0
1.2
7.8
.9 D (Drop)
8.7
12.3
<3.6> / .9
4.6
2.0
1.2
7.8
.9 D (Drop)
8.7
12.3
<3.6> / .9
On this game my blacks are correct, the greens are high by $500 and the red and silver are correct. There are two players on this game: Mr. A and Mr. Z. Mr. A is in $100 cash and has $300 green in front of him. Mr. Z is up with $1000 in green and has $300 in green in front of him. The only way I can reconcile the green count is to compute how much green I have between the rack, the layout and what Mr. Z came up with.
I have $2400 in green in the rack and $600 on the layout, for a total of $3000. I now subtract Mr. Z’s $1000 green and am left with $2000. My sheet says $1900, so I will correct it to $2000. Now perhaps whoever wrote Mr. Z’s rating card gave him credit for having $1000 green when he really came to the table with $1100, or perhaps Mr. A came with one-hundred in green that the floorperson didn’t know about or neglected to record on the rating card but in the absence of anyone telling me these things, I am going to adjust the sheet to conform to what I know and what I can see. After all, I saw how Joe had screwed up the count on BJ-1, so I can assume he made a minor mistake on this game as well. If the discrepancy was larger, say in excess of $500 or so, I might have to consider bringing it up to the pit boss.
5.8
2.4
1.4
9.6
1.7 D
11.3
10.5
+ .8 / 1.7
I have $2400 in green in the rack and $600 on the layout, for a total of $3000. I now subtract Mr. Z’s $1000 green and am left with $2000. My sheet says $1900, so I will correct it to $2000. Now perhaps whoever wrote Mr. Z’s rating card gave him credit for having $1000 green when he really came to the table with $1100, or perhaps Mr. A came with one-hundred in green that the floorperson didn’t know about or neglected to record on the rating card but in the absence of anyone telling me these things, I am going to adjust the sheet to conform to what I know and what I can see. After all, I saw how Joe had screwed up the count on BJ-1, so I can assume he made a minor mistake on this game as well. If the discrepancy was larger, say in excess of $500 or so, I might have to consider bringing it up to the pit boss.
5.8
2.4
1.4
9.6
1.7 D
11.3
10.5
+ .8 / 1.7
On this game I am missing $10,000 purple, $1,700 black, $1,200 green and the red and silver are correct. Mr. Q is has a stack of purple and nearly a stack of black between his current bet and what he has on front of him. He only has $100 in green in front of him but has two green checks bet for the dealer. The fifty-dollar bet for the dealer and the fact that the toke box is a fourth of the way filled with green, tells me where the missing green must be. I need not change my sweat sheet since it appears to be correct.
Just like a player cashing-out checks during play, the green the dealer is dropping in the toke box won’t be taken off the sheet until the player quits and I am closing his rating card. Mr. Q is in two $500 markers (notice the two five-hundred dollar lammers inserted in the fifty-cent tube, which I also confirmed by checking the table card for the markers and the Mr. Q’s rating slip) and $2000 cash and has $12, 900 in checks (yes, I need to include the money in the toke box) so he is winning $9,900.
For Joe’s sake I hope he has notified the shift boss and surveillance. I will notify them myself as soon as I do a quick run-down to find out how much the game is stuck.
21.5
7.8
2.0
.8
32.1
4.4 D
1.0 R (RIM)
37.5
48.9
<11.4> / 4.4 D / 1.0 R
Just like a player cashing-out checks during play, the green the dealer is dropping in the toke box won’t be taken off the sheet until the player quits and I am closing his rating card. Mr. Q is in two $500 markers (notice the two five-hundred dollar lammers inserted in the fifty-cent tube, which I also confirmed by checking the table card for the markers and the Mr. Q’s rating slip) and $2000 cash and has $12, 900 in checks (yes, I need to include the money in the toke box) so he is winning $9,900.
For Joe’s sake I hope he has notified the shift boss and surveillance. I will notify them myself as soon as I do a quick run-down to find out how much the game is stuck.
21.5
7.8
2.0
.8
32.1
4.4 D
1.0 R (RIM)
37.5
48.9
<11.4> / 4.4 D / 1.0 R
Now while the RIM (markers) is always considered an asset to go towards a table’s rundown, there are some differences from casino to casino about how it is listed in a run down. Some casinos would just include the RIM with the drop so the run-down in this case would be presented as <11.4> / 5.4. Now while I’m sure you would like me to teach you the one “right way” to do things, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I will say now and repeat often that I can only show you a variety of how things are done. This will be beneficial to you in your career as you will be able to adapt when changing jobs and things are done differently than the way you were trained.
So now comes the time that we all dread: I must be the bearer of bad new to the emperor, my shift boss. But first I will call surveillance so when he asks me if I called them, I will be able to say yes. I call the eye and say;” This is Scott, pit 3, Mr. Q on BJ-10 is in one thousand RIM and two thousand cash and is winning almost ten thousand.” I will now call the shift boss and say;” This is Scott; Mr. Q on BJ-10 is in one thousand RIM and two thousand cash and is winning almost ten thousand. The game is stuck eleven thousand.”
Some casinos expect you to run-down your section at regular intervals in you shift and turn in your numbers to the pit or shift boss. Remember, he is not interested in your calculations, merely the results. You will either list the games individually or combine all numbers for the games in your section. A run-down for the games I just showed would look like this:
Scott 11:00
BJ 1 +2.4 / 5.2
BJ 2 –3.6 / .9
BJ 9 +.8 / 1.7
BJ 10 <11.4> / 4.4
Total <11.8> / 12.2
Or it would look like this:
Scott 11:00 Section 1
<11.8> / 12.2
An alternate definition of the word “need.”
There is another method of running down games that I suspect isn’t used much but I prefer it and not just because it is the way that I was taught for my first floor job.
If a table’s opener is 10.0 and it got a 5.0 fill most people would say that game had a 15.0 “need.” Using the method I am going present, the 15.0 would just be called “the opener” or “the adjusted opener.” The word “need” has another meaning, which is the difference between “what you are looking for” and what is in the rack.
So, if the table opener is 10.0 and there was a fill for 5.0, that means, “we are looking for” 15.0. If there were only 13.0 in the rack, then our “need” would be 2.0. If the a amount of checks in the rack exceeds the amount of the adjusted opener, then that game has what is called a "plus need."
I find it can be very useful to compute the need. Say for instance, you run down a game that has only had grind play all night and find out the need is two thousand, you might be curious as to how two thousand in checks could have left that game. It might make you decide to add the individual openers by denomination and lo and behold, whoever wrote down these numbers, failed to add them correctly. Actually, it is not a bad idea to check the totals on the sweat sheet to make sure they are right, at the beginning of your shift.
So, if the need is $2,000 and the drop on this game were $3000, the rundown you give to the boss would look like this:
BJ 1 11:00 Scott
Need 2.0
Drop 3.0
And you would depend on your boss to “connect the dots” and figure this game is winning one thousand dollars. As with the regular method of running down your game, you can list the need and drop for your games individually or give one total need and one total drop for your section.
Adapt to the way your casino does things!
I hope that I have given a good overview of Sweat Sheets and Table Cards are done. Please don’t get overly hung-up on the details I have given. Things are done at least a little bit different from casino to casino. By comparing the procedures I have described to how things are done where you are working can give you insights to the common denominators of procedures everywhere.
Chapter 3
Fills and credits.
Fills and credits.
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Las Vegas, Nevada
Scott Cameron
Las Vegas, Nevada
Email me [email protected]
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Last update 3/18/2024
Last update 3/18/2024
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