Looking for a Poker Dealer to Deal your Home Game?

How many home poker games played across the world are actually dealer dealt? It is nearly an impossible question to answer due to the lack of any reliable statistics on home poker but I would estimate that over 95% are dealt by players themselves. However, Dial a Dealer, a company that re-launched a few weeks ago is doing their best to change that statistic.

Dial a Dealer allows you to search for poker and casino dealers that are available for hire in your local area. The site is really simple to use and all a user has to do is enter their location and up pops the profiles of all available dealers.

Why do people not ever hire poker dealers for their home games? After all, it is an appealing prospect to have an experienced dealer to come in and run your home game. It speeds up the play, allows a player to focus on their game and avoid any arguments about poker etiquette. Matt Alford (founder of Dial a Dealer) states that the main reason is the fact that the cost of hiring a freelance dealer does not compare favourably with the average pot size of most home poker games. A second reason is the fact that most people do not know any dealers. And if you don’t know any dealers, where do you turn to? Most people will contact a casino night hire company. And when you get a middleman involved, you can be guaranteed that the price goes up by 50%.

Will Dial a Dealer solve those problems? By connecting dealers directly with home poker games, the punter should certainly dramatically reduce the cost of hiring a dealer for their next home game. There are dealers on site at the moment listing their services at between £10 and £30 and hour, which although not quite as economical as a card room, it does make having a dealer at your home game a feasible possibility.

So we know the players can benefit, what opportunities does the service present for the dealers? Listing on the site and putting yourself in front of thousands of potential customers will set a croupier back $15 (£10) a month. It does seem a lot, but it looks more favourable when you think that all a dealer needs to do is obtain 1 job a year until he hits breakeven.

Dealers are certainly taking the bait in the UK, with 25 dealers already having registered. The company is open to dealer registrations from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.