Back to the Grind

PAUL SCULPHER assesses the return of land-based casinos in the UK – but asks: is there a step change coming to table gaming pricing?

As I type, UK casinos have finally been given the green light to re-open on a somewhat limited basis, and casinos around the world are creaking into action at varying speeds, with some still completely closed, and some open without restrictions. The initial results are in for UK casinos at least, and seem to be reasonably consistent – pleasing early levels of business, generally with a slightly lower attendance than expected, but higher spend per visit.

There’s cautious optimism, although in the unique situation we’re in, there is of course plenty of uncertainty as to what happens in the summer. Is the fabled huge pot of new household savings going to be partially diverted into drop boxes, or will it get spent on staycations, longed-for other nights out, or simply stashed in case of future life-changing events?

One thing that does seem to have popped up as a bit of a game changer is consideration of price of play. For many years, UK operators have aspired to divert lower spenders (and, critically, slower spenders) in the direction of electronic gaming, both slots and more importantly (given we’re allowed unlimited numbers) onto electronic table games. Electronic Roulette is particularly key, given Roulette is the dominant table game in the UK.

The gaming floor yield specialist's dream is to get bigger players on the live tables; receiving exceptional customer service in a nice, fast, three or four player game while the "I've got £50($70) and I want two hours' entertainment from it" merchants are happy on the terminals, with a cocktail/coffee valet not too far away. The advantages of offering electronic play are obvious, with far lower annual cost per position, no sick days (well, that's if your tech team are on the case) and, if you wnat to insist on it or are obliged to provide it, an easy route to 100% carded play.

The interesting element has evolved out of early lockdown restrictions, however. In an environment where only three players were allowed per table, and in some cases social distancing plus restricted space meant operators couldn’t offer as many tables as usual, available playing positions were drastically reduced. As any A-level economics student can tell you, when demand remains constant but supply is restricted, price goes up – and in many cases that’s what happened. In the steady state pre-Covid, most operators were at least somewhat hesitant to go on the attack with minimum stakes, especially in a competitive landscape where most of your players are regulars; and can play down the road at your rival’s casino if they want, say, a £5 Blackjack game where you’ve jacked it to £10.

However, those decisions became a lot easier when you’ve got the excuse/reason that you only have 12 playing positions where you’d normally have 30, even to the extent of leaning on saying exactly that to players. “We’ve done it to help you get a seat” sounds a lot better than “we’ve done it because a £5 Blackjack game with five skilled players playing to 0.8% and ignoring the side bets – after 30% gaming duty, and running slow because we have to rely on trainee dealers – barely pays for the dealer and a piece of the other staff’s hourly rates, and we’re not a charity”.

As a side note, I’m always surprised how heavily UK operators rely on spend per visit as a key metric when looking at individual player value, especially at the lower end. Modelling everything in granular detail is tough – even for the operators who use the top of the line yield management software (not much of which is really designed with UK-sized business in mind). However, there’s a key stat that I don’t really see anyone looking at, and that’s speed of play.

In a world where you’re mostly limited to 20 slots, and maybe now a lower than usual number of table gaming positions, how fast people play is just as important as how much they play. Obviously decisions per hour and stake per round are part of the theoretical win calculation, but that’s generally just used in terms of Average Daily Theo or theo per day/year – theo per hour as a measure of speed of loss is also important in a world of limited supply. The truth is that, at busy periods, you really can’t afford to have someone taking up a valuable slot seat (and maybe now table seat) if they’re only playing 50p a spin, at a glacial pace. Seats are for gamers only!

Since re-opening in the UK there’s the additional incentive to trade players up the cost curve because, as predicted by many, staffing is an issue. A cursory look at LinkedIn or any operator’s website will see them all hiring gaming staff, or trying to; and with plenty of staff having hoovered up furlough payments with no intention of returning to work (or returning to the country), the cupboard is pretty bare.

The normal route of laying on a ton of training schools will be tough too – the dearth of staff in all hospitality roles may well mean a rise in wages. And not too many 20-year-olds looking for a job will actively seek the one which needs six weeks of training and working through the night; rather than the bar or waiting job with a couple of days to get up to speed and knocking off nightly at 11pm.

The UK has always been relatively timid on pricing for table games. Part of this may be the neighbourhood-type style of many smaller sites. Using my not-particularly-scientific indexing method of comparing minimum Blackjack bet to price of a beer, in most UK casinos outside London you've always been able to get a game for around the price of a pint, often less.

There are plenty of countries where that wouldn’t be true, and while dealer wages in the UK are proportionately lower than many countries, it seems to me that a rebalancing is due.

The Covid-19 outbreak and restrictions of available player positions, now exacerbated by lack of staff to operate them, may hurry operators down the line of catching up with other countries – and making table gaming an option only for those prepared to level up their play.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Chequemate

PAUL SCULPHER, co-director of Gaming Recruitment Solutions, dusts off the credibility of an antiquated payments system and asks if progress might actually signal the end of Mayfair’s world-leading exclusive casinos.

Anyone who works in the gaming industry can’t help but notice the bombardment we all get via LinkedIn and other avenues from payment processors, generally offering ever sketchier sounding solutions for online casino providers to help their clients deposit funds. However, there’s a world of trouble being caused at the very pinnacle of the market due to the imminent withdrawal of a far older payment method – cheques (checks to our American brethren).

While to most people, cheques are a distant memory – the last time I got one, I think it was a tax rebate years ago, and I had to go into an actual bank branch to deposit it, like some sort of caveman – they’re a key part of the UK high-end casino business.

Their use in casinos was ubiquitous years ago, before the 2005 Gambling Act came into force, where they were permitted by secondary legislation under strict rules. With no ATMs allowed, and before the days of debit cards, there was a period when most casino guests could use up to three cheques per day, backed by their “cheque guarantee card”, a concept from yesteryear. It was also permitted to set up a cheque cashing facility (CCF), which allowed larger cheques to be drawn by players, up to an agreed facility limit with strict rules on how that limit could be extended. It was possible to have “house cheques” which were in a blank chequebook, where the casino would fill in the account details for the player from their records, so they didn’t even need to remember their own chequebook.

The system was very effective, and indeed I remember, as a trainee dealer, the glorious pleasure of being plucked by a friendly pit boss from a tedious day shift to walk up to the bank and deposit the 20-odd cheques from the previous day’s trading. However even in those days, the cheque situation was much more fundamental to the existence of the Mayfair casinos, as it was the only practical way to access funds for gaming beyond carrying cash itself – obviously no joke when you’re into five figures and beyond.

Fast forward to the last five years, and the cheque element of the top-end casinos is critical. Mayfair and those associated high-end casinos of London are alongside the top destinations in the casino world, and with staggering sums changing hands, any friction in the flow of funds is going to be problematic, especially when dealing with people not necessarily known for their patient attitude to service issues.

The problem is that the processing of foreign cheques is already beginning to end, and, for example, RBS has closed accounts for some of the high-end casinos. Given that you, I and everyone we know outside casinos don't use cheques anymore, that kind of makes sense. However, this is going to cause an absolute disaster for the Mayfair casinos in terms of access for players to their own funds. You might well ask "So what? Every business has to adapt to the modern world." And well they should, but the anachronistic legislation does not allow it.

The implications are also wider than just the business of the people concerned. Consider that, pre-Covid, the last numbers publicly available for the “big six” top-end casinos (classified as Les Ambassadeurs, Crockfords, Aspinalls, Ritz, Maxims and the Clermont) showed their combined GGR was about a third of a billion pounds per annum, so straight away that’s well over £100m ($139m) in gaming duty per year. It’s not like the people who visit these sites only spend money in casinos too. This pinnacle of wealthy tourists tends to hang their visits around the casino option but they aren’t scared to spend money elsewhere in town during their stay, along with generally a pretty large entourage. There is also the employment these casinos offer, in a traditionally staff intensive hospitality environment of well over a thousand employees. Finally, if the perception is that these businesses are so wealthy that they can withstand any storm, bear in mind that the legendary Ritz casino is gone from Mayfair for good, closed in early Covid. No business is immune.

I spoke with David Livermore, legal and compliance director at Les Ambassadeurs Club, who told me, “The Mayfair casinos have operated for just a few days since the first lockdown in March and this sector is unlikely to open again until the summer. Even then, our high net worth customers may not return to the UK, certainly until they are confident in the travel arrangements and their ability to transact at our casinos when they arrive. It is extremely frustrating that we’ve been discussing what amounts to a minor change to the legislation with DCMS, Treasury and the Gambling Commission for over four years, and despite an agreement that it’s necessary and sensible, there has been no progress. The proposed change would allow the Gambling Commission to regulate all transaction methods, replacing the current outdated restriction that exists on the face of the Act. Without this adjustment, our customers will be unable to sensibly transact and are thus unlikely to come back to London at all. The loss of so many jobs and vital revenue for the UK, for the sake of a minor regulatory adjustment, would be irresponsible.”

It does seem that asking for a minor change in the legislation, to bring more methods of funding under the Gambling Commission purview, shouldn’t be that big a deal. While sympathy may be in short supply for these incredibly luxurious and exclusive properties, it certainly shouldn’t be for the staff who work there, and that’s before we even think about the nine-figure sum of tax raised annually by their players.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Return to Form

Casinos are due to re-open soon, but will there be anyone available to work in them? PAUL SCULPHER, co-director of Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and a case study from SYLVIE MAZACOVA, a casino dealer at Genting Casinos UK, examine the harsh realities of getting back to business.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant:

The struggles of the hospitality industry have been well chronicled in the media over the last year or more, and as I write, the hallowed date of 17 May for re-opening is fast approaching and some sectors may be in a better position to get a running start than others.

Personally, I am a firm believer that there’s going to be an explosion of activity from patrons who’ve had nothing beyond the essentials on which to spend their money for a year, and tills will be ringing away up and down the land, with the offline gambling sector being no exception.

However, there is another looming potential problem in the casino sector, likely shared by others – availability of staff. The impact of Brexit combined with Ovid may deliver an impact greater than the sum of its parts on an industry that has depended in recent years on more than its fair share of European imports for staffing.

Let’s wind the clock back a decade and figure out how we got to where we are. Ten or 15 years ago, there was a significant expansion in UK casinos, in scale if not so pronounced in numbers. Many sites were relocated from smaller city-centre premises, to larger edge-of-town sites. Gaming table numbers increased, and the general feeling was that with UK casino participation rates being so low by comparison with other countries, there was an opportunity for operators to open up the industry with more newbie-friendly surroundings. Leaving aside whether this was a profitable strategy, clearly larger premises would require more staff.

This gap was filled in many cases with staff from overseas. In the UK offline casino sector, gaming staff can’t just be pulled in off the street. They generally need a six-week training period, and it takes at least that long for them to apply for and receive their Personal Functional Licence, which confirms they’re fit and proper to operate in a business that needs to stay firmly on the right side of the law. Enterprising types in Europe began running training schools for dealers, and applying for their licences directly, meaning they could offer dealers that were table ready without UK operators having to deal with the expense and delay of “growing their own”.

Many a casino punter over the last few years will have had the experience of being dealt to by friendly faces from Italy (particularly Sicily), Lithuania, Poland and a wealth of other countries, and the whole arrangement worked tremendously well for all concerned. However, there’s now a real concern that having relied on this resource to keep the lights on, Brexit and Covid in tandem could derail an industry that has come to rely on a rich seam of skilled pre-packed colleagues. contact about this looming problem. He told me in no uncertain terms that we don’t know for sure where we stand. “Many I spoke with a senior industry contact about this looming problem. He told me in no uncertain terms that we don’t know for sure where we stand. “Many of our European staff have successfully achieved settled status, but they may not be in the country, and may not be able to enter easily pending Covid regulations,” he said. That doesn’t sound ideal, and we further discussed the prevailing mindset. “The fact that the pound has lost some of its value against the Euro won’t help either, making for a reduced incentive for staff to return if their objective was to send funds home for their family or future,” he added.

The issues around Brexit and Covid are most pressing for staff based overseas, but the sector has long struggled with recruitment in the UK, too. As readers will know, UK casinos outside London are not generally a licence to print money, and with the wage bill being a very significant part of operating costs – almost no casino can open its doors without spending a £1M on wages, and most significantly more – they aren’t in a world of being able to blast 20% pay increases to boost the intake.

“One of our other issues is the minimum living wage,” my connection further commented. “As it increases, it pushes up our floor rate, and of course we still need to maintain the increments for our more senior staff, so there really isn’t much space for more increases. Tips do help, but it’s not a huge bonus in most sites. We are really competing against other base level jobs like working in retail or behind a bar.”

While that may not sound like a recipe for the pinnacle of customer service, anyone who has visited UK casinos will attest that service levels range from the wonderfully personal to the actively hostile – much like anywhere else in the world at the grind action level. UK casinos tend to end up with a hard core of staff who stick around for years, plus a revolving cast who try it out for a few months or a year, and decide it’s not for them. The hardcore are generally (although not in all cases) the ones who get to love the environment and the guests, and become a much loved part of the fabric of the club. In many ways, that’s the key to getting a team that will deliver what an operator needs – stability. There’s a lot to be said for the casino working environment for the right type of person. Sure, nights are tough but speaking as an ex-dealer, shift manager and GM, there’s a rhythm to casino life that makes it a satisfying lifestyle. Weekend nights out are overrated anyway, midweek happy hours fit the bill for a lower wage, and with rush hour an irrelevance and progression a possibility for a hard working staff member, it’s not all bad. 

If there is a reduction in available staff, particularly on the dealing side, casino operators have some difficult decisions to make. It’s not like staffing levels haven’t been cut down as far as possible from a cost perspective in past years, so there isn’t a simple solution. The only alternative course of actual in the face of true staff shortage, if table yielding has been maximised under a larger staff complement, is to drive up the cost of playing. A good operator will already have games running at maximum speed, so price of play is the only other option. These days (as opposed to the old 1968 Gaming Act), we can amend rules to be a little tougher – double zero blackjack and harsher blackjack rules would increase the edge – but in a market mostly depending on local customers like the UK, that’s going to raise eyebrows. Raising price of play is thus the route operators may take, and here is where there may still be some juice.

From vague memories of when casinos were open, you would still see £3 blackjack games provincially in some places, but if staff is short, these types of games must surely disappear. Roulette, the mainstay of UK casinos, is more complex, since if you increase the minimum chip cost, people just play fewer chips, so enforcing a minimum spread per spin may be the next move.

My contact also made the point that ancillary spend might be the next target, and given the nature of most newer UK casinos, with ample bar and food provision, that makes sense. The problem is there’s a big gap between gaming spend and F&B– typical averages outside London in the UK might be £20 to £25 per head and £3 to £5 per head respectively – so that’s a lot of work to do to fill the hole. There’s also the issue that serious punters and social visitors primarily there for a few drinks and to watch the gamers don’t always mix that well, so the F&B route out of the problem may not be straightforward.

Other ideas have been floating around for years, like some kind of hybrid offer with bar, food, cash gaming and other types of social games (shuffleboard, pool and so on), or a few very international scale sites (torpedoed by the change in legislative policy), or my preferred route of smaller sites focused on pure gamers with miniature wage bills to match. Whatever happens, offline play levels aren’t increasing, wage bills are marching northward and the precious resource of competent gaming staff is likely about to take a nosedive.

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Silvie Mazacova, Veteran casino dealer at Genting Casinos UK:

Casinos should definitely worry about more than just whether their patrons will return or not. Staff levels should absolutely be top of their agenda as well.

While some casino groups kept nearly the same level of staff as before Covid and made use of the incredibly generous furlough scheme, some casinos went for it and decided to make as much as 60% of their staff redundant.

However, casino businesses have seen a massive plunge in staff levels over the past decade. I experienced a 50% decrease in staff numbers over the past five years. From 40 people on a night shift to 20 in one club, and from 15 people on a day shift to 8 in another. Low levels of staff may also mean dealers will spend longer periods on the tables between breaks - hardly a recipe for exceptional customer service (or enhanced security).

The wage for new croupiers just joining the business hasn’t been particularly encouraging either. Some high-end casinos in London are offering amounts of around £22k. Yes, tips in London are better than in provincial casinos, but, as we have found out this year, they are of no help if something unpredictable happens, like a global pandemic. Looking at possibilities for changing career paths, remote working is an enticing possibility, and in other sectors, a new working week looks something like three days in the office and two days at home. Why am I mentioning this? The commuting cost, of course.

Another facet that’s challenging for casino staff is the chance to progress and earn a pay-rise since not everyone got hit by Covid as hard as casinos, as other companies still offer progression. My view is it's not a secret that progression in a casino means that you are doing more tasks for the same amount of money. Senior croupiers run the floor and dealers inspect. It's not unusual to earn 22k a year and supervise a game with tens of thousands of pounds at stake. I am afraid that many people will not want extra responsibility for no extra reward. So who would want to commute to the centre of town five times a week and spend all night and weekends at work, with limited chance of meaningful progression, if they can get a job that's partly remote?

I suspect casinos may realise that they’ve made a huge mistake by getting rid of many of their staff with a plan to hire more when the pandemic is over. Many casino workers have used the one-year-long lockdown to up skill and, so that they can pursue a new career; they may not find the idea of working five nights a week with no chance of promotion and a pay rise for years to come very appealing. I, for example, have gone through writing courses, started a side-hustle as a copywriter to open new opportunities and set up a blog about fitness. Others started crafting beautiful items to sell on Etsy, which can easily turn into a full-time business in the future. This makes me believe that from the already reduced team, many of them will not return to their old job at all.

Brexit will also make the “foreign import” harder. If the new system of having to earn at least 25k a year gets the green light, casinos will lose a source of qualified and licensed staff from the rest of Europe. If the points system based on Australia becomes a thing, casinos may not be able to get a foreign workforce at all. It’s safe to assume that croupiers will rarely be considered as important for the economy and society as doctors or engineers. But maybe that drives casino wages up – or staff numbers further down – but something will have to change.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

An identity crisis amid the government review and the coronavirus pandemic

With a legal review coming on UK land-based casinos, PAUL SCULPHER of Gaming Recruitment Solutions asks: where are we going?

The pandemic, and its associated restrictions, has obviously had an effect on the UK casino industry that ranges, depending on whom you speak to, from the dire to the catastrophic. As I type, the furlough replacement scheme – the Job Support Scheme – has just been announced, and operators have a complicated equation to consider, with some unknown variables. Paying 33% of full-time hours vs government subsidy vs redundancy costs vs £1,000 grant for retained staff would be a mathematical problem. But add in the question about further lockdowns and a guess about the landscape in April and you end up with a difficult educated guess required as to what to do.

Where is this industry going? 

To answer that, it’s worth reflecting on where it’s been. I’ll cut a long story short, and please forgive the cliches. Thirty years ago when casinos were largely low ceilinged, centrally located smoky places with a waiting period before you could get in, the public perception was that they were a) full of gangsters and scary people or b) full of James Bond types in dinner jackets using cigarette holders and eating caviar. 

As we moved into the late 90s and the 21st century, operators were trying to open up the perception of casinos into the mainstream, with the oft-quoted stat that only 2% or 3% of the population had visited a casino in the last 12 months, wildly lower than (usually cherry-picked) other countries – conveniently failing to recognise the AWPs in every pub, high street arcades, 9,000 plus betting shops and the imminent arrival of online gambling.

This opening up process often took the form of a larger site, further from the centre of the town or city, with a wider offering, encompassing at least an upscale bar, larger restaurant, sometimes entertainment and with deregulation to smooth things along. The idea was that penetration into the populace would doubtless follow. 

Looking back now, you’d struggle to say it was a wild success. Bigger sites mean bigger rents and bigger employment costs, but many operators simply found that while their admissions numbers went up sharply in the bigger boxes, the surge was largely at weekends and those extra admissions translated into bar sales, sure, but not so much on gaming (especially when limited to ten, then 20 B1 slots).

The addition of live entertainment didn’t even tickle the needle in most places, and many operators were left scratching their heads as to why their bills were way higher but their bottom line didn’t move much – those throngs of new visitors stubbornly refused to become gamers in significant numbers, and those that did not only didn’t have much of a gaming budget, but equally importantly were slow spenders on gaming. 

Fast forward to today, and not too much has changed. I’ve written before how smaller sites seem to me to be the direction of travel. With licences devalued given both the pandemic and the strangling effect of AML and affordability regulations, it seems to make sense to take a step back and aim the offer at people who already have both the desire and the means to gamble. In fact there’s even been a short-term direct blow struck to the industry by the will to offer a wider experience in the UK casino trade. When, as an industry, you lobby for years for some sympathetic treatment from lawmakers on the basis that casinos aren’t just gambling venues and have a wider offer, it’s hardly surprising that you get lumped in with bars and restaurants when it’s time to decide who gets stuck with a 10pm curfew. That’s just unfortunate happenstance, but the question remains: Has the attempt to open the market up to new players failed? 

I spoke with the marketing director of one major UK operation last week (mostly operating larger sites with the same drive to attract non-gamblers), who revealed to me a very telling snippet. The most popular page on their websites was under FAQ, and was “What’s the dress code?” If potential visitors are still asking that question after two decades of making casinos more friendly to newbies, surely an objective observer would say it just didn’t work. 

So what’s the answer, when the COVID dust settles and it’s time to look beyond the immediate survival horizon? Well, there’s a Gambling Review coming, and while it may be over-dramatising to say it’s either move forward or die, there certainly won’t be many chances to secure improved terms for the offline industry. Sure to be on the larger operators’ lists of preferred changes will be more slots and portability of existing licenses. There’s an element of “they would say that” of course since they hold most of the existing unused licences and their operations are skewed towards the higher footfall locations where the limit of 20 slots means they’re at or near comfort capacity a relatively high proportion of the time.

If we look beyond the big boys, what else might the industry ask for that could genuinely help out, and not be unrealistically contentious? Well, you’d start with automated table games. Electronic roulette was a total game-changer when it was first introduced, with the UK being so roulette heavy, transferring some of the action onto terminals saved a fortune in employment costs and has doubtless effectively protected thousands of other jobs ever since. There’s no earthly reason why roulette and other games shouldn’t be allowed to be offered on terminals via RNG, as they are in every online casino on earth, and the combination of the casino atmosphere with a variety of available games means the casinos could simply be a lot more fun.  

Currently the rules mandate that there has to be physical equipment involved: a real wheel, or real cards and dice, and this makes offering auto craps and card games exceptionally awkward and expensive, as anyone who’s seen the price tag for an automated dice shaker will attest. The chance for players to test the water on a million new games that people might love, but don’t want to play first time at an intimidating table could revitalise the industry like few other options. The jobs protected by making the whole product more fun and ensuring the viability of some casinos would heavily outweigh those lost in a couple fewer tables per site. 

The review should also consider adding in new areas for casinos. The Permitted Areas Regulations, which governed where all casinos could be located, date back to 1960-something, so it’s hardly too relevant these days. The 2005 Act added some laughably random sites, from those already offering casinos, Leeds and Southampton for instance, to the ludicrously non-viable: Dumfries, Skegness anyone? There are plenty of areas in the country that currently can’t by law offer a casino, but from an economic perspective would be very attractive, leading to a potential competition process for local councils that could guarantee significant local benefits (as were realised in Stratford, Leeds and other locations). There’s no value in allowing portability of existing licences (which were originally awarded with no assurance of anything but the right to operate within that area) when there are tens of millions to be made for local areas by maximising the value of new locations.

There are plenty of other areas where the UK casino industry can lobby for changes, especially in the context of the online operators being under so much scrutiny. Concessions to these big land-based casino employers seem only fair as they’re locking in the most jobs, paying significant UK taxes, and bear the burden of the AML and affordability rules. The contrast between the process UK casinos have to follow, and that which online players need to follow is genuinely astounding, as anyone who has seen some of the self-certification safer gambling page of one major bookmaker will attest. I don’t even know how much you have to spend with some online operators to trigger a conversation with a real person, even now, after so many high profile cases of spends wildly out of line with incomes. But it’s the sort of number that no offline casino operator could even imagine. 

The offline industry in the UK is in a hole, no doubt about it. The upcoming review may be a lifeline – although some operators will sink without a trace long before it provides any benefit. But we can only hope that it offers some kind of opportunity to continue to provide one of the more community benefit-rich forms of gambling in terms of employment and tax revenue to UK punters. That shouldn’t be restricted solely to the two major operators, and the other operators’ voices should be heard when it’s time to put forward the industry view.

Paul Sculper, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant

This article originally appeared in the November/December edition of Gambling Insider magazine.

Your Perfect Employee Comes From The Casino Industry!

Why do we, casino employees, always meet with a suspicious eye when applying for a job in a different field?

An article by Silvie Mazacova,

Casino Dealer at Genting Casinos UK and publisher of fitness & food website www.fitnesschaos.com

We either don't get contacted at all, or we have to answer weird questions like:

• "And what does it mean to work in a casino?"

• "Why on earth do you think that you could be a good fit for our company?" (OK, not in these words, hiring people are professionals after all, and they try not to be rude. But, between the lines, this is exactly what they are asking.

And I can't say I blame them.

A WEEK IN A LIFE OF A CASINO EMPLOYEE

The casino industry is a world of its own. We all know each other because we work such unsociable hours that we have no option to know anyone else. We are so desperate that we marry each other in the end.

OK, that sounds a little too tragic! It's not always like that and many people manage to have a decent life, some of us do manage to have friends elsewhere, and the lucky ones even get to marry someone from the outside!

The main reason as to why we are the best employee anyone could have, is that we are so used to pressure! And it's a shame that none of the potential employers know that!

Imagine starting your work-day at 10 pm. Then, you try to make drunk people happy for 8 hours, while you are attempting to work out, sometimes incredibly complex, calculations. Obviously looking beautiful - full make-up, hair and nails done, suited and booted.

Not to mention that the treatment you get sometimes might not be your typical office interaction. You might get to experience some beautiful moments like:

• Someone shouting at you

• Someone insulting you

• 5 different people asking 5 different questions from 5 different directions (my favourite, especially when your own helpful colleagues are part of this verbal diarrhea)

• If you are lucky, someone might even throw something at you

Yes, Casinos are a very civilised environment.

So you go through all that, only to get home at 7-8 o'clock in the morning. Pass out, wake up in the afternoon when everyone is just finishing their work day.

You have a "breakfast". And if you slept more than 5 hours, you might even go ahead and hit the gym or do some housework, or even shopping! But you can't do much because the working hours change all the time and you have less time today! You have to get to work for 8pm, which means that you have to leave at 6 pm.

Traffic in London is a sight to behold. Even if you don't drive, you have to leave early because the train is 90% likely to get cancelled.

You get there five minutes to 8, slap make-up on your face, boys suit and boot up. And we do the shouting, insulting, counting and arguing all over again.

We leave the building at 3am! Yay! Don't get excited, you have to be back at 2 pm the same day. Go home, go to sleep, and get up at 11am not knowing where, or who you are. But that's OK, we are used to that. Coffee will do the job. Or seventeen of them.

You go through the day-shift without ever waking up and, quite often, not remembering what on earth happened that day. The only thing you can think of, is sleep. Somehow, however, you manage to do your job extremely well and even put a smile on your face.

You are so knackered at the end of the day that you master the last little remnants of strength, and drag yourself to a pub to get a Gin & Tonic for £15. Or two. The beauty of working in Mayfair is the bargain prices.

After 5 days of these shifts, days off come! It's not a weekend, obviously, so you can't go out with your normal friends (if you have any). But that's OK, you just want to sleep, anyway.

You manage to do some housework, catch up on sleep, go to the gym so you don't have a heart attack when you are 45 (you at least hope so), and spend some time with a partner of yours. Which is really convenient because, remember, they work in a casino too.

But they are most likely on opposite shifts, so you just have to call them and hope they are awake. Same as your family, really. Get used to the fact that your mum will be calling you at 9 am asking: "Why are you asleep?" Mine still does this 11 years later, so don't think you will be able to explain your weird hours to them.

Want to go out with your normal friends or visit your family at the weekend? Sure. No problem. You have weekends off every 6 months. Who wants to see them more often, anyway.

SO, WHY ARE CASINO EMPLOYEES SO GOOD TO HIRE?

Well, first of all, after what I've just mentioned, I don't think you can throw us off by something simple like a deadline. I mean, after being sleep-deprived for years, a deadline is quite a nice form of pressure. Or is it pressure, really?

We juggle constantly changing shifts, friends, love life, family and some of us try to stay fit and look OK-ish. So by being told that I have to write 5,000 words in four weeks is not going to make me crumble. I'll probably do it on the train to work.

I am not trying to devalue anyone's work at the office and I am aware that a 9-5 job, or working from home, poses its own difficulties.

Also, I cannot even imagine what sort of pressure you must be experiencing, if you own your own business!

Main point I am trying to make here is that we are constantly under pressure and we are damn good at dealing with it:

• We have to look presentable.

• We have to smile all the time and pretend that we have no personal issues or lives.

• We have to function on minimal amounts of sleep. And we do!

• We have to multitask - calculate, look good, smile, have a casual conversation with a customer, and be respectful of the team we work with (which is challenging at times).

• Our interpersonal skills and relationships must be top-notch! As I will explain in a bit.

So, if any potential employer is reading this, don't dismiss us. We are NOT just a bunch of pretty girls and boys, who spin the ball in a roulette wheel. It's a tough job, emotionally and mentally.

If you ever need an employee, who

• is energetic

• can multitask

• is great at customer service

• doesn't crumble under pressure

• is excellent at teamwork

• doesn't mind a little sleep deprivation

then please do consider a CV with the casino industry on it. We are often overlooked because nobody knows what skill sets we possess. Even if we do mention our skills on our resumes, nobody can put them into context, and I am not surprised. A casino is not a venue that everyone has been to, or want to go to.

WE ARE NOT CROOKS!

As my former colleague rightly pointed out, other issues we often have to deal with are the following accusations:

• We do not steal anyone's money, neither do we beat people up in the basement.

• The casino industry is incredibly strictly regulated.

• We have to prove where every penny comes from and if we cannot, we are not allowed to accept it. Cash is becoming less and less frequent due to increasing numbers of rules regarding money laundering.

• We have to be aware of many rules and regulations and protect ourselves and our employer all the time.

• The times when casinos were dark dens in the underground and customers were carrying guns are buried in the past. It's definitely not your typical UK scene.

• We don't work for Kray brothers!

WHAT DO WE DO WHEN THE CASINO IS QUIET?

You must have been thinking this, right?

It can't be busy all the time, just like pubs and bars are not constantly packed.

You are absolutely right. More often than not, we are quiet. But that poses more challenges than you would think.

We are a small team of people. So imagine working with 10 - 15 employees. Not a problem, right?

Now, imagine that you have nothing to do and you have to spend 8 hours a day staring at your colleagues. With nothing to do, no deadlines, no assignments, nothing to do at all. Now, imagine they are all women. The casino industry, at least the London one, is largely dominated by women.

Not that I am against women, not at all. It would be a little counterproductive if I was since I am a woman myself. I have found some amazing friends in this industry. But let's be fair. We, women, tend to have the urge to talk without saying a lot. If you had 10 men in the room, it would most likely be a very quiet room.

Lock 15 women together in a room with nothing to do and let 2 men be their boss. What do you think is going to happen? You are probably thinking something like a third world war. Well, I'm sure there were moments where this guess was not far from the truth.

So, what do we do?

Well, we cover the weather, obviously. We ask about the husbands, kids and family and find out if they are still alive. We might even have something in common with each other, we are human beings after all.

I'm not going to lie. There are differences and disagreements.

BUT! We have learned to leave our own emotions and issues at home. When we come to work, we have to treat everyone professionally, not just the customers, but each other too. We work in a high-end environment and there is no space for personal issues.

This is another reason that makes us so valuable! And it all comes down to the ability to handle pressure and stress in the end. We are damn good at it. We make jokes out of situations that would send most of the population to a psychiatrist's office.

THE END

I hope I didn't bore you too much with a story about a profession nobody knows anything about. But that was the point of this article. I wanted more people to know what we do and how our skills can be transferable to many different industries.

If you could share this post, dear reader, I'd be eternally grateful. And I am sorry if my sarcastic tone made someone feel undervalued or uncomfortable - that was not the purpose.

The purpose of this post was to:

• offer insight into a mysterious job role from someone who has been in it for 11 years.

• inform

• hopefully entertain

If I made anyone laugh, that's a bonus.

It's enough for me that you managed to stick to the end!

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn