Chapter 12

Techniques in Sitting Box  

Even if the position of “boxman” or “boxperson” is a thing of the past at some casinos, when you are the supervisor that is sitting behind or even standing behind the bankroll on a crap table, you have duties that are different than those of a BJ floorman.

A BJ floorman has responsibility for more than one game; therefore his supervisors know that he can’t possible be on top of every mistake a dealer makes. When you are sitting box; your supervisors expect you to make an effort to catch every dealer mistake. And they are absolute in their belief that you should be on top of every “situation” that arises.

Added to these expectations for the newly promoted boxman, are the facts that he is, no doubt supervising his “old crew” and is also taking on new responsibilities, such as marking up the drop.

Now at this point some readers are no doubt scoffing at my last statement implying “marking up the drop” is something of a concern. Some readers will scoff because they have never worked in a casino that required supervisors to mark up the drop during the shift. Others have forgotten what it is like to be new on the job and learning new responsibilities.

Marking up the drop.

Here is a typical lammer rack that is often mounted on a crap table so the boxman can keep track of the drop and “RIM” (markers).

RIM (far left/blue arrow): this is the slot you will put the lammers indicating the total amount in markers that have been issued at this table. The lammers needed, will be taken from the three slots to the right (purple arrows). Bosses usually prefer that two $500 markers be marked up with two $500 lammers, instead of one $1,000 lammer. The total amount in RIM lammers should match the total amount in markers on the table card.

Dead $20’s: there will only be a total of four $20 lammers kept here and will be moved to the live $20’s spot (two slots to the right) as needed.

Dead Large: will only be stocked with the number of lammers shown on the bottom row, which are sufficient to mark up a total of $19,900. When marking up large you move the lammers two spaces to the right.

If a player buys-in for two $10 bills, you might mark up $20, or you might not, depending on the policy or custom where you work. When the pit manager computes the win/loss for his shift, he often adds a certain percentage to each table’s drop for “small” or “grind” and takes into consideration that you have no doubt dropped a few $10 bills (or smaller) and didn’t mark it.

When tapping in on a game or getting tapped out, it is a good habit to take note of the amount of drop that is marked. That way, if there are questions about the drop later, you can say something like; “There was $5,200 drop when I sat down and $6,700 drop when I went on break.”

Just before or during the count, your pit boss may instruct you to take down the RIM and/or the drop. Always make a mental note on how much you take down, in case there are questions about it later.

A couple of tips pertaining to buy-ins.

When we sit box our natural tendency is to want to look good in front of the floorman. One of the ways you can do so is to show some common sense in how you prove cash buy-ins.

The powers that be prefer that you see both sides of a bill and to have the front of the bill face up on the layout. If the player has given you a stack of bills that are all facing the same direction, there is a simple way to accomplish both.

Helping the floorman keep track of buy-ins.

You might be wondering why, if the floorman is keeping track of the player’s buy-ins on their rating cards, you need to remember the amounts of the buy-ins and relay this information to your relief. If you ever find out the answer to this question, I hope you will let me know.

Ultimately, ours is not to question why and we must do our best to know how much all much our “real” players are in and how much they left with. If there are only one or two big players on a game, this isn’t that hard to do. When the table is full of “real players” it becomes more difficult and the best advice I can give you is to think about what you are going to tell your relief, when he taps you out.

When your relief taps you out you will give him all relevant information on the players, starting with the player that is closest to third base and work your way around the table, until you get to the player that is next to second base. The information you will relay about each player is:

Tracking large denomination checks.

Since tracking players involves knowing how much in checks they possess, left with or went south with, there is a method for keeping track of this that you should know before the situation arises.

Suppose your bankroll has 22.3 ($22,300) in black and you decide to start paying Mr. A (who is on the third base end) in black. You set a full stack of black plus the three extra checks out for the dealer on third base. Now if anyone asks, you are “working twenty-three black” to Mr. A. Now if Mr. B, on the second base side, needs to be paid in black, you will set out a full stack for the second base dealer. You are now working twenty-three black to Mr. A and two thousand black to Mr. B.

If more black is needed, you set out another full stack to that end of the table and adjust your mental note as to how much black you are working to that end of the table. When Mr. A or Mr. B leave the table, you know how many black they have by subtracting the amount you have left from the amount you are working.

If another player were to color-up one or two blacks, you would take them from the third base end, since that is the end that you are working an odd amount of checks from. For example, if you color someone up for two hundred in black, you would take it from the third base end and you would then be “working” twenty-one black to that end.

When you are tapped out you would tell your relief something like; “You are working forty-one black to Mr. A on third base and two thousand black to Mr. B on second base.”

Monitoring the game.

Watching all three dealers on a busy game is certainly not an easy thing to do. It is an acquired skill and can never be mastered. But you need to have a good foundation and the way to achieve that is to concentrate on watching your end.

We know that the end opposite of the shooter is the stickman’s end and the shooter’s end is the boxman’s responsibility.

1.) When the stickman sends the dice, the boxman will watch him send the dice to the shooter. 

2.) Just like the stickman, the boxman should look at player’s hand for a split second after he throws, to ensure he can’t see another pair of dice in it.

3.) The boxman will follow the dice in the air and watch them land. While you want to avoid jumping out of your stool, you want to see the roll if at all possible. If there is a beef about a roll, I guarantee you will the one the bosses question.

4.) You don’t have to wait for the stickman to call the dice before you turn your head to watch your end. Assuming the base dealer on your end isn’t bird-dogging the dice, this will give you an advantage of knowing what the roll is and what the dealer should do first. However, if the stickman miss-calls the roll, you had better be ready to correct him instantly.

5.) After your end is finished you of course watch the other end.

A couple of more pointers: scan the prop area as you are turning your head towards your end. You then know which bets the stickman should be taking down. If the base dealer on your end fails to react instantly to the call, then take this opportunity to catch a glimpse at the other end, just long enough to make sure the dealer isn’t doing something totally goofy, such as picking up the don’t pass on a seven-out.

Learn how to use the mirrors to see bets, payoffs and even cocked dice. It takes a little practice but you will be amazed at how much easier those mirrors make your job.

Correcting the dealers.

Dealers have always been a sensitive bunch and tend to be defensive when corrected. Added to this dynamic are the facts that modern society breeds less disciplined young people than the previous generations and that there is now a Human Resources department that they can run to if they perceive you as “being mean to them.”

My best advice to you is to always talk to the dealers as though your shift boss was standing behind you. Be very careful in how you joke with them as a single ill-advised gag can land you in the shift manager’s office explaining your sense of humor.

The two major skills you require to monitor your game are anticipation and communication. You must utilize anticipation to know what a dealer should be doing next or how much he should be paying next. Failure to do so will result in the player picking up the money and putting it in the rack before you have realized the dealer was wrong.

Communication is the ability to give instructions with the wisdom that comes from knowing that the dealer can’t read your mind and is often in a confused state to begin with. A good example of this is when the dealer is trying to decide how much to pay $20 flat with $45 odds on a winner six. A mediocre boxman would say something like; “Pay it $54” or “Just pay it $74.” They would then come out of their stool when the dealer paid it a $54 total or paid the odds $74 and then proceeded to pay the flat bet. A good boxman would say something like; “The odds pay $54” or “Pay it $74 total” or “Pay him $75 for one dollars, total.”

Enforcing house policies for shooting the dice.

The advent of “dice setting” has made the task of maintaining a reasonable amount of control of the game, a daunting task. Even shooters that are sober often believe that they are the ones that control the game and not the dealers or suits. Ultimately, how you enforce the rules I am about to describe, depend on how much your supervisors recognize their existence and how much they are willing to back you up.

While it is understood that we are willing to accept the fact that the shooter will occasionally miss the end wall, there comes a time when he must be told. I always find it annoying when a stickman says; “Four easy four on a short roll!” as the dice are landing or tells the shooter; “All the way down” as they send him the dice. Not only can the shooter easily ignore both remarks, “all the way down” is such an ambiguous standard that many shooters believe that they are complying with it already. How this should be handled is to leave the dice in the center of the table, look the shooter in the eye and in a pleasant and professional voice tell him; “Sir, please try to hit the end wall with both the dice, thank you.” When the shooter throws the dice in such a haphazard manner that there is no chance for them to hit the end wall, you say; “Sir, please try to aim, so you can hit the end wall with both the dice, thank you.”

When the shooter is taking too long to set the dice; while the dealers are paying, tell him; “Sir, its alright to set the dice, just try to set them a little faster, thank you.”

If the shooter is banging the dice on the table before shooting, tell him; “Sir, its ok to tap the dice but please don’t bang them too hard, it wears out the edges, thank you.”

When another players starts bitching or tells the shooter to do what he wants you might say; “We’ll run the game, thank you very much.” This statement, however, can be very inflammatory and should be used judicially.