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[h=1]Insiders tell authors how casinos wane[/h] By REUBEN KRAMER Staff Writer | Posted: Saturday, November 1, 2014 9:30 pm
An upcoming book by a pair of Richard Stockton College professors gives readers the deepest look yet at what it’s like to work in the casino industry, the authors say.
“Just One More Hand: Life in the Casino Economy,” set for a February release by Rowman and Littlefield, may be the most thorough qualitative analysis ever done of a casino workforce, co-authors Ellen Mutari and Deborah Figart said after a reading at Stockton on Thursday.
“There have been a lot of studies about the industry, and gambling and addiction. There has been practically nothing about casino employment and people on the job,” said Figart, a professor of education and economics.
She said the book draws from interviews of 35 employees of the Atlantic City casino-hotel industry and probes the question: Are these good jobs? The answer, the professors say, is: Not as good as they once were.
“We emphasized the frontline jobs. The ones that have interaction with customers,” said Mutari, an economics professor. “Mostly, it was dealers, floor people, people who worked with the slot machines, security, cocktails servers and hotel guest room attendants.”
The takeaway, she said, is that in Atlantic City, “what once was a good job, has become a bad job.”
Figart said, “Long before the great recession of 2008, the jobs were evolving as more and more companies got into the gaming market.
“It became a legitimate, Wall Street-funded market,” she said. “The quality of the jobs began to go downhill.”
Benefits and pensions diminished, and so did tips, they say.
“It used to be that, since a lot of these jobs are tip jobs, you could do quite well when the casinos were full. But now that we have fewer customers, tip rates have declined,” Mutari said.
And the industry became more reliant on part-time labor, she said. “Some of the newer people we’ve talked to in the casinos are working two or three part-time jobs, and they need to pool income from several jobs in order to make ends meet.”
The workforce is being asked to do more with less, Mutari said — a phenomenon she called “speed-up.” Supervisors watch more tables, and servers serve more people, she said.
She said Atlantic City casino jobs are, in the main, risker than they once were, something underscored by the fact that the market has lost four casinos, and may lose a fifth, in 2014 alone.
So when people enter the workforce here, they’re gambling, she said, “even when they don’t intend to.”
Contact Reuben Kramer:
609-272-7239
RKramer@pressofac.com
[h=1]Insiders tell authors how casinos wane[/h] By REUBEN KRAMER Staff Writer | Posted: Saturday, November 1, 2014 9:30 pm
An upcoming book by a pair of Richard Stockton College professors gives readers the deepest look yet at what it’s like to work in the casino industry, the authors say.
“Just One More Hand: Life in the Casino Economy,” set for a February release by Rowman and Littlefield, may be the most thorough qualitative analysis ever done of a casino workforce, co-authors Ellen Mutari and Deborah Figart said after a reading at Stockton on Thursday.
“There have been a lot of studies about the industry, and gambling and addiction. There has been practically nothing about casino employment and people on the job,” said Figart, a professor of education and economics.
She said the book draws from interviews of 35 employees of the Atlantic City casino-hotel industry and probes the question: Are these good jobs? The answer, the professors say, is: Not as good as they once were.
“We emphasized the frontline jobs. The ones that have interaction with customers,” said Mutari, an economics professor. “Mostly, it was dealers, floor people, people who worked with the slot machines, security, cocktails servers and hotel guest room attendants.”
The takeaway, she said, is that in Atlantic City, “what once was a good job, has become a bad job.”
Figart said, “Long before the great recession of 2008, the jobs were evolving as more and more companies got into the gaming market.
“It became a legitimate, Wall Street-funded market,” she said. “The quality of the jobs began to go downhill.”
Benefits and pensions diminished, and so did tips, they say.
“It used to be that, since a lot of these jobs are tip jobs, you could do quite well when the casinos were full. But now that we have fewer customers, tip rates have declined,” Mutari said.
And the industry became more reliant on part-time labor, she said. “Some of the newer people we’ve talked to in the casinos are working two or three part-time jobs, and they need to pool income from several jobs in order to make ends meet.”
The workforce is being asked to do more with less, Mutari said — a phenomenon she called “speed-up.” Supervisors watch more tables, and servers serve more people, she said.
She said Atlantic City casino jobs are, in the main, risker than they once were, something underscored by the fact that the market has lost four casinos, and may lose a fifth, in 2014 alone.
So when people enter the workforce here, they’re gambling, she said, “even when they don’t intend to.”
Contact Reuben Kramer:
609-272-7239
RKramer@pressofac.com
