Dealer shenanigans at Bally's

I just got home from a session at the poker room at Bally's. I ran into two consecutive dealers who just couldn't keep information to themselves.

In the first situation, two players (not including me) were contesting a pot. The board read A-K-Q-J rainbow. As the dealer put out the river card (some baby card that presumably didn't change anything), before either player had had a chance to act, she said, "If both of you have a 10, it's chop-chop!"

This is just appallingly bad form. It would still be bad if she said it after the action was complete, because you never know when a player might have misread his hand or the board, and the announcement makes him rethink a decision to muck his cards unseen, thinking that he had nothing. (For example, he has a 10-2 and mistakenly thinks that the jack is a second king.) But to say this before either player has had a chance to evaluate the final board and act on it is so unforgivably inappropriate that it would be grounds for disciplinary action, if I ran a card room. One warning for such conduct, and the next time it's a pink slip. There are way more dealers than positions for them, so no need to put up with one who queers the action.

The next dealer to our table accidentally exposed my second card as she was pitching it to me in Seat 1. It was a 7. She replaced it in the standard fashion and showed it to the table. I was first to act. When I looked at my cards, they were a 2 and a 7. I had not noticed which one I got first, so I don't know whether I would have a pair of 7s or just a different 2-7 if not for the flub. But it didn't matter to me. These things happen, and they're just part of the game. I pushed the cards back to her in exactly the same way I do every time I fold.

I said or did nothing that would provoke what this dealer did next, and it's something I've never seen any dealer do before. She peeked at my mucked cards, without invitation. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, she reacted with horror, nudged me with her arm, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry!"

So now, instead of everybody knowing one card that's out of play, anybody who was paying attention to her little song and dance now could infer that a second 7 was gone. It's impossible to know on any given hand, but this kind of improper information has the potential to cause all sorts of changes to the ensuing action.

If you click on the "dealer" label at the end of this post, it will give you a list of all the posts I've written on dealers who feel an odd compulsion to inject themselves into the game in ways and at times that they have no business interfering. I may never, ever understand what the hell their problem is. But based on my small sample today, it seems that Bally's is chock full of blabbermouths in the box.