A poker dealer distributes cards to players and manages the action at a poker table.
Professional dealers
Any casino with a poker room must hire a staff of dealers. Casinos generally pay dealers minimum wage. However, a dealer's primary source of income is not salary, but tips from players. Tip income may be substantial for dealers who can deal hands quickly and efficiently. There are a few exceptions for taking tips. (e.g., in Sweden, where all the casinos are owned by the state, dealers and other casino personnel may not accept tips from players. This rule is complied with strictly.)
To become employable by a casino, applicants without prior experience are typically required to complete a 4 to 6 week training program at a dealing school. Dealing in a casino may require working late hours and remaining seated for long periods of time. Dealers also commonly work holidays, since these are especially busy days for casinos. Having to deal with difficult individuals or abusive players may be another drawback to dealing at a casino.
Major poker tournaments also hire dealers. For a given tournament stop, the tournament coordinator will hire dealers on contract for the duration of the tournament, which may be a few days to a few weeks. Room and board may or may not be provided by the tournament management; the dealer is typically responsible for their own travel expenses.
Mechanics of dealing
Dealers must be proficient in shuffling the deck, distributing the cards to the players, and, if required by the game being dealt, turning up the community cards in the center of the table. There are two methods of distributing the cards, "American"-style and "European"-style.
Shuffling
To shuffle the cards, the dealer follows a sequence defined by the casino. First all cards are spread out on the table and pushed around randomly. This is called "scrambling" or "washing" the cards. Then the cards are collected and squared into a deck. At this point a typical shuffling sequence might be: riffle, riffle, box, riffle. Professional dealers always keep both halves of the deck very low to the table while shuffling. Some casinos have automatic shufflers built into the table that shuffle a different deck of cards while the previous hand is being played, which speeds up the game.
Finally, a cut card is placed on the table and the deck is cut onto the card. The cut card is held on the bottom of the deck for the entire hand, to keep the bottom card from being exposed.
American-style dealing
In American-style dealing, the deck is held in one hand, and the dealer uses the thumb of their deck hand to slide the top card of the deck toward their pitching hand. The pitching hand clasps the card between the thumb and index finger while at the same time the mid-point of the card touches the face (nail) of the middle finger. It is the extension of the middle finger that "pitches" the card off the top of the deck and a whooshing sound should be heard as each card exits the top of the deck.
The ability to pitch cards accurately is critical, since the cards must be delivered in a way that no players at the table can see the undersides of the cards.
European-style dealing
European-style dealers touch only the top of each card being dealt. The card is pushed off the top of the deck to the table surface in front of the dealer. The dealer then propels the card toward the recipient, usually imparting some spin to the card to encourage sliding.
Burning and turning
Before dealing a community card, the top card off the deck is burned, or discarded. The rationale for burning is that the top card on the deck is visible to players during the previous betting round, so that a cheat might be able to spot a mark on the top card and therefore gain an advantage on his opponents.
When burning, the deck must be held low and the burn card kept level with the table surface. Casinos watch carefully to make sure a dealer does not "flash", or inadvertently expose, the burn cards to players at the table.
In flop games, the three community cards comprising the flop are turned up simultaneously, never one at a time.
Responsibilities during a hand
Dealers control the action during a hand. This may include prodding players to act, verbally announcing actions of players to the rest of the table, and correcting players who act out of turn.