Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette With the instructor holding a stop watch, students Greta Leas, left, and Stush Dzingliski practice paying off winners at the craps table quickly during a class at West Virginia Northern Community College in Wheeling.

WHEELING, W.Va. -- Don't turn your back on the gamblers. Keep your hands on the table. Give the players verbal cues. Let the "eye in the sky" surveillance camera see what's happening at all times.

The 330 potential poker, blackjack, craps and roulette dealers undergoing training at West Virginia Northern Community College are getting plenty of instruction. And they're doing plenty of mock gambling of their own, too.

That's new for some of the bartenders, roofers, salespeople and people from other vocations as they seek to enter the Northern Panhandle's new growth industry: casino table games.

"I don't gamble, period. I have a lot of vices, but that's not one of them," said Frank Tarovisky, 53, of Wheeling, a former US Airways flight attendant practicing his chip handling -- not as easy as it looks -- while starting four weeks of roulette training, followed by four weeks of blackjack classes.

The community college partnered with Wheeling Island Racetrack & Gaming Center to begin offering classes for dealers two weeks ago, and new courses will begin next week at Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort for students closer to that facility, 40 miles north of Wheeling along the Ohio River in Chester. Mountaineer held a career fair in its hotel ballroom earlier this week to solicit hundreds of registrants, hoping to fill its future needs.

In both cases, the tracks won countywide referendums last month allowing them to add table games to the slot machine gambling they've profited from for more than a decade.

Combined, they touted about 1,000 new jobs to be added in the Ohio Valley, with potential incomes of $35,000 to $40,000 annually -- the majority of it in tips -- plus benefits. Such wages beat most alternatives in the hard-pressed region.

The expansion is a direct result of Pennsylvania's legalization of slot machines. The June 11 opening of The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in particular has affected Wheeling Island, which has lost more slots players each week since then and took in 17 percent less revenue the last week of June compared with the week before The Meadows opened.

By Sept. 1, both panhandle racetrack/casinos want to begin operating poker rooms, and about a month later, additional games of blackjack, craps and roulette. That can't happen without people who know how to run the games.

A vacant college building in downtown Wheeling has been converted into a gambling school, where instructors who will be supervisors of table games at Wheeling Island are teaching novices how to flick roulette balls around the wheel and "muck" the "cheques."

Cheques are the industry term for the colorful chips of various denominations used in the games. To muck them is to be able to count, sort and stack them in speedy fashion, with hands flying and eyes barely peeking down.

At the craps table in Room 108 of the Hazel Atlas Building, a stopwatch was used on a dozen potential dealers of the casino's hardest game to oversee. In craps, lots of different bettors surround the table and a variety of odds factor into any winnings by each one. It requires eight weeks of 20-hours-a-week training, twice as much as for the other games.

"I posed a question about using a calculator, and got laughed down," confided Greta Leas, 27, of Steubenville, Ohio, one of the youngest students and no math whiz. She has a marketing background, and has been told that the best way for a newcomer to advance to casino management is to learn how to run a craps table.

Competitive laughter and jousting were the norm among the men and women starting the craps course, as they practiced paying off patrons efficiently. That training is on top of the just-completed, two-week, all-game introductory course, with the full tuition costing $600.

"They say if you can deal craps, you can deal anything," said Stush Dzinglski, 37, a self-employed Wheeling upholsterer enamored with the idea of securing a job with health insurance for himself and his 3-year-old daughter.

"Once you get to know how to move the chips, then it's fun interacting with people," he said.

In fact, an outgoing nature seemed the most common trait among the student body hoping to be hired at Wheeling Island. It's loaded with self-described "people persons," whose chances for employment are good if they pass a casino audition and criminal background check after completing the course.

Patty Kernan, 41, of Moundsville, W.Va., said a lot of people have told her she has "the right personality" to run a fast-paced game like roulette, where the idea is to keep people entertained as they play. She has been studying nursing at the community college, but senses working at the casino would be more fun and less strenuous.

Her instructor warned her and others about roulette players, however.

"This is the game people are most likely to cheat at," Ms. Kernan said. "They'll work in teams, get you distracted and try to steal the chips."

The casinos won't tolerate dealers who let that happen. The money is supposed to flow in the other direction.

Rick Cole, 44, a commercial pilot from Clarington, Ohio, looking to hold a second job, was well aware of the casino's interests as he practiced dealing blackjack with Matt Davis, a bartender, and John Herbert, an unemployed grandfather.

"I love customer service, so I can do this," said the talkative Mr. Cole. "It's the art of making people happy while taking their money."