Atlantic City Dealers Fear Proliferation of Electronic Casino Table Games Like Poker and Roulette
On August 25th, 2008, Kathy Bresan, a poker dealer working at Caesars Atlantic City, recently received a raise of twelve cents in an hour. That's cents, not in dollars. Now she makes $4.50 per hour and the take home pay for her part-time job at the casino is about $50 per week. She said that it is barely enough to make ends meet.
Bresan and thousand of casino dealers in Atlantic City casino survive on tips, one of the main sources of incomes by the service-oriented gambling industry. Casino dealers said that 2/3 of their earnings come from tips. Now the dealers are worried that the introduction of automated electronic casino games will chip away at their livelihood.
The debut of the automated casino games at Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino this summer shows the growing popularity of this kind of gaming in the industry. Automated gaming machines do not require human intervention and they do not need to be tipped. The introduction of automated gaming machines coincides with an effort by the United Auto Workers to unionize the casino dealers.
As of the moment, the UAW has won election at the Trump Plaza, Bally's, Caesars and Tropicana Casino and Resort. It lost at the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Trump Marina Hotel Casino, although a judge ordered a new union election at Trump Marina after finding that the first election was flawed by casino misconduct.
Protecting the job of the dealers by limiting the number of electronic casino table games will be among the safeguards that union is seeking as it renegotiates with new casino contracts with casinos. Up until now, electronic casino table games hardly mattered among the thousands of live casino games and slot machines that can be found in the gaming floors of the city's eleven casinos. Trump Plaza has started slowly offering fourteen electronic PokerPro machines in an effort to see if it will be a hit with their customers.
Rapid Roulette, a newer version of the classic casino game, is another example of electronic gambling that made its debut in Atlantic City this year on a limited basis.
Harrah's Resort, Bally's, Caesars and Showboat Casino Hotel offer one Rapid Roulette table each. A computerized wagering system is utilized to speed up the game, but Rapid Roulette still needs human intervention to spin the roulette wheel and give the chips to players when they cash out. Commission spokesperson Daniel Heneghan said that the New Jersey Casino Control Commission has given their approval on the PokerPro machines and Rapid Roulette as the only electronic casino tables games for Atlantic City.
The chief executive officer of Trump Entertainment Resorts Incorporated, the operator of Donald Trump's three casinos in Atlantic City, Mark Juliano said that the fears by the dealers about losing their jobs are without basis.
September 17, 2008
Max Baker
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