croupier

Etymology

Borrowed from French croupier.

noun

1. The person who collects bets and pays out winnings at a gambling table, such as in a casino.
   Every time the little gate creaks--I'm in the shed with the tanks at the end of the garden--I wonder from which of my pasts the person is arriving, seeking me out even here: maybe it is only the past of yesterday and of this same suburb, the squat Arab garbage collector who in October begins his rounds for tips, house by house, with a Happy New Year card, because he says that his colleagues keep all the December tips for themselves and he never gets a penny; but it could also be the more distant pasts pursuing old Ruedi, finding the little gate in the Impasse: smugglers from Valais, mercenaries from Katanga, croupiers from the Veradero casino and the days of Fulgencio Batista. 1979, Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
2. One who, at a public dinner party, sits at the lower end of the table as assistant chairman.