The state of Pennsylvania is betting big on table gaming. Earlier this month, Governor Ed Rendell (D) signed into law a bill that permits table games such as blackjack, poker, roulette, and craps in addition to slots, which were legalized in the state in 2004. Along with the expansion of the state\u2019s nine gaming facilities comes the creation of new jobs. State Representative James Wansacz (D), a member of the Gaming Oversight Committee, estimates that table gaming will mean ten thousand jobs in the state. \u201cIt\u2019s clearly proven so far to be a tremendous tax revenue generator and job generator. Table games I think will add to that\u201d, said Frank Fahrenkopf, President and CEO of the American Gaming Association of the slot facilities.<\/p>\n
Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs has already begun the hiring process and they\u2019re looking to fill 500 positions. They\u2019re hiring for a wide array of openings. From jobs directly related to the table operations such as dealers and supervisors to security, cashiering and food and beverage type jobs. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have 60 table games, five hundred employees more there, creating jobs there, creating tax revenue for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and creating a more complete gaming experience\u201d, said Mitchell Etess, President & CEO of Mohegan Sun.<\/p>\n
Other operators also have big plans for big hiring. Wendy Wilson, spokeswoman for the Mount Airy Casino Resort in the Poconos, says close to 1,000 applicants showed up at a recent job fair they held to fill 275 to 300 fulltime positions. Applicants came from neighboring states like Connecticut and Pennsylvania and also from as far away as San Diego and Seattle. \u201cWe had hundreds go through the door, they interviewed all day, well into the night. We\u2019re going to cull those resumes and see the best possibilities and take it from there\u201d, Wilson said. Similarly, Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh is planning to hire 350 people. They\u2019re looking for dealers, supervisors and pit bosses. \u201cOur current employees will have the first opportunity for those positions\u201d, said spokesman George Matta, \u201cso the openings will trickle down to the whole operation\u201d. Some properties, such as Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, are not yet announcing what kind of hiring they plan to do. Ron Reese of Las Vegas Sands Corporation says they\u2019re waiting for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to draft the gaming regulations before they finalize their design plans and make hiring determinations.<\/p>\n
The employment picture is not quite so rosy in the gaming industry nationwide though. The American Gaming Association estimates that revenue is down about ten percent industry wide and layoffs go hand in hand with drops in revenue. \u201cI mean, lets face it many of the jobs in this business are volume related so if your business is down twenty five percent you probably need less people to work there\u201d said Etess of Mohegan Sun. \u201cI have to believe that we\u2019re probably down in direct employees somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people nationwide\u201d, said Frank Fahrenkopf of the American Gaming Association. Mohegan Sun in Connecticut took a different approach to dealing with the economic downturn. Rather than lay off workers, the company implemented pay cuts in order to keep people employed. \u201cWhat we did approximately a year ago was we had across the board salary rollbacks for everybody in the building. From the line employee who took a four percent rollback, all the way up to executives, including myself, who took a ten percent rollback\u201d, Etess said. And while nobody really likes to take a paycut, Etess said their employees embraced what they were doing.<\/p>\n
Casino Operators and the American Gaming Association have a good outlook on the growth of table gaming in the state of Pennsylvania and nationwide though. \u201cAs the economy starts to come back across the country and people hopefully go back to work and we get below ten percent unemployment, then we\u2019ll get more discretionary income and people will enjoy getting away and enjoying the recreation from the casino industry\u201d, said Frank Fahrenkopf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The state of Pennsylvania is betting big on table gaming. Earlier this month, Governor Ed Rendell (D) signed into law a bill that permits table games such as blackjack, poker, roulette, and craps in addition to slots, which were legalized in the state in 2004. Along with the expansion of the state\u2019s nine gaming facilities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}