Dice, wheels almost ready to roll Oneida casino workers are being trained on a craps table (photo by H. Marc Larson). The Oneida Casino is close to introducing craps, roulette By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle "Yo-leven!" and "new shooter comin' out!" are not what you expect to hear in the middle of the Ashwaubenon Industrial Park. That's what has been happening, however, at the Oneida Nation Enterprises building as Oneida Bingo & Casino gears up for the introduction of craps and roulette at its main casino. The casino is aiming for an Aug. 25 start for the new games, said Frank Cornelius. "We'll have two craps tables and two roulette tables, and then we'll see where it goes from there as far as popularity." The new games are part of the expanded gaming allowed under a new compact with the state of Wisconsin the tribe signed earlier this year. The compact also increases Oneida payments to the state while granting the Oneidas - and other tribes in their compacts - perpetual gaming rights instead of limited-term contracts. The Potawatomi tribe has introduced the games in its Milwaukee casino, and other casinos are getting ready to add them. The Oneidas are training dealers for the two new games. The training is being done by Casino Creations, a company based in Las Vegas. Its president, Vic Taucer, is also overseeing training at the Menominee Nation Casino in Keshena. The Oneidas are moving experienced blackjack dealers into the new games and have hired replacements for blackjack, Cornelius said. That's making Taucer's job easier. "Normally, it takes a minimum of six weeks to learn how to deal craps or roulette. But the first three weeks of that is the basics - handling money and dealing with customers," he said. "The people here already know that, so we can condense it into three weeks. They're long days, though." Unlike blackjack, where the dealer handles a table by himself, craps tables require a crew of four. One is the boxman, who handles the money; one is the stickman, who controls the dice and handles bets in the middle of the table; and two more oversee bets at the end of the table. "It's a real team effort," Taucer said. "And the money end is much more complicated." Unlike blackjack, where dealers only need to know one or two payouts, the same bet in craps could pay anywhere from even money to 30-1. "It's the most complicated game in the joint," Taucer said. Trainees take turns as dealers and players, rolling the dice and the roulette wheel, then handing out the chips and raking in the losses - with fake chips, of course. Cornelius said the addition of the games was not to add profit from the games themselves - slot machines are the most profitable games in the casino - but to offer visitors a full-service experience. "When we have people come up here for vacations from Milwaukee and Chicago, we want to offer everything we can," he said. The casino will follow the introduction of craps and roulette with other games, many of them variations of poker set at blackjack-style tables. They are, in likely order of addition according to Cornelius, Let It Ride Bonus, three-card poker, Carribean Stud, mini-baccarat and progressive pai gow poker. That makes seven new table games being introduced in a short time. One that won't be added is regular poker. It's possible under the compact, but Cornelius said space for the several tables needed for a poker room wasn't available in the casino. Taucer said training for the other games was easier because of their similarities to blackjack dealing. His company will do some training, but other games, such as Let It Ride, are leased from their creating companies and require special training.