Savior?

It's a commonly held belief that Steve Wynn singlehandedly made Las Vegas into the economic powerhouse that it is today, bringing over 30 million visitors and billions of tourist dollars a year to our wonderful city.

It's not just a belief--it's a God's honest fact. Before his Mirage opened in 1989, Vegas was withering on the vine, attracting nothing much beyond the occasional leisure suit-wearing conventioneer, while half-assed properties like the Frontier and the Riviera competed for the dwindling share of gambling dollars, now that Atlantic City had jumped into the casino gaming market.

Steve Wynn parlayed a small stake into a billion-dollar empire, literally rebuilding the city skyline with places such as The Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio, and now his namesake resort and casino, The Wynn. He got the ball rolling in 1989, and others have followed suit. The Vegas of today exists because of Steve Wynn--is there any doubt that places like the Luxor, New York New York, Paris, Mandalay Bay, and Monte Carlo would've never been built had there been no Mirage?

For those of you that pay attention to all that happens in the Vegas world, the hot button issue of the past several months in this town has been Steve Wynn, and his decision to give his floor supervisors a big raise.

No big deal, right?

Well, the money isn't coming out of his pocket--he decided to take money from the dealer's toke boxes to pay his floor people, instead of paying them with actual casino money. On the surface--and from a dealer's perspective--it was a completely dickheaded thing to do. Dealers are the ones working for and earning the tokes, not floor supervisors.

However, the 800 pound gorilla that's driving the situation was the fact that the floor people's salaries were between 50-60K per year--not bad, considering that it's about the easiest job in Vegas, but not that great either. But the problem is that the dealers at Wynn, who make about $7 an hour from the casino, with tips were averaging about $90,000+ per year. Yes, the Wynn casino has some great tippers playing there. But one can easily see the inherent problems with the frontline troops making almost double what their immediate supervisors make.

First and foremost, eventually you'll end up with a shortage of floor personnel--dealers won't want to move "up", and the floorpeople you already have will leave for greener pastures once an opportunity presents itself. But even more obvious, you'll inadvertantly create a sense of entitlement amongst the dealers, human nature being what it is, and that will only create friction. Even in a casino like mine, I see it every week. When our dual-rate floor people come in and see that the dealers had a big toke night the day before, they get pissed because they were standing floor instead of pitching the cards, and lost out on fifty or a hundred dollars or more.

(That's one reason I have no desire to become a dual-rate. I think ours get paid $160 per shift, which is $20 per hour, but as a dealer, if I make more than $104 in tokes per night, then it'd be a pay cut for me to stand floor. And we almost *always* make more than that. For example, two nights ago we made $179 in tokes, and adding the $56 in wages I got from the casino, that put my earnings $75 above our dual-rate floor supervisors for the night).

So even on a small scale, I can see the friction. I can't even begin to imagine the bitching I'd hear if I were making $200 more per night than the guy standing behind me wearing the suit. So that's the world we live in--sometimes the dealers, because of tokes, make significantly more than the lowest-level supervisors. And the casino owners certainly don't want to take money out of their bottom line to pay people, so that brings us to Steve Wynn's recent decision forcing the dealers to split a portion of their tokes with the floor supervisors.

When the announcement came at the Wynn, the neon telegraph put the word out immediately, and the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth could be heard all over the valley.

It's illegal!

It's not fair!

If he wants them to have a raise, HE should pay them, not me!

Lawsuit time!

When I first heard about it, I thought, Gee, that's interesting, but it doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Of course, the uninformed masses of my fellow dealers treated the news like proof that the Four Horsemen were saddling up. It was impossible to sit peacefully in the dining room and enjoy my dinner without some knucklehead spouting their views--usually some genius pronouncement along the lines of If only we were unionized, that shit would never be able to happen! or How long before they do that HERE???

Morons.

First of all, taking a percentage of the dealer tokes would never fly at my casino. The disparity between dealer income and floorperson income just isn't that great. Yeah, it's a bit of a pay cut on most nights, but a lot of floorpeople wear a suit because they're sick of dealing and putting up with all of the bullshit that a dealer has to put up with on a nightly basis. So to them, the peace of mind is worth it. And once you move beyond 'dual-rate' status, your pay is increased--the more experience you have, the higher your salary. So there really isn't any justification for that kind of toke splitting.

Second of all, it seems that my employer is deathly afraid of unionized employees. A huge portion of every new employee's orientation is geared towards all the (truthful) disadvantages of having a union. And we're reminded of it on a regular basis. Personally, I myself am staunchly anti-union, and always have been (for reasons I won't discuss here or in my comments section, so don't try to stir the pot), and would never even consider joining one.

However...

If The People In Charge decided that effective immediately, the floor supervisors would get 10% of the toke pool, the first thing I would do is sign a union card, encourage my fellow dealers to do the same, and then start looking for another job. Several of my co-workers have told me that they'd do the same thing.

Of course, I say that because I'm not making $95,000 per year while sitting on my ass dealing Pai Gow to chain-smoking Filipinos. I'm making somewhat less than that--I'm not bound by the Neon Handcuffs, so I have a few more options. Basically Steve Wynn said to his dealers, Suck it, bitches. Where else are you going to go?

And it's true. Nobody else makes that kind of money. I know a few of the dealers at Wynn, and as soon as they figured out what they'd earn on a 'regular' basis, a bunch of them bought expensive cars and houses with ridiculous mortgages. Good for them--I wish I could've been in the same position. But when the announcement came, it caused some sleepless nights. (One thing I learned the hard way back in the tech boom days--if good money comes too easy, it never lasts. And making almost six figures for dealing blackjack seems too easy...)

As a dealer, I still believe it was a dickheaded move on Steve Wynn's part. But as a normal human being with a modicum of common sense, it's hard for me to feel too sorry for a bunch of dealers making that kind of money at such an easy job.

I know, my position is somewhat inconsistent. When they came for the Wynn dealers, I remained silent... But the truth is that dealing, for me, is just a means to an end. It's not who I am, it's what I do. I could easily be doing something else. But right now, the money is good, the work is enjoyable, my bosses are decent, and my complaints are minor. I've worked harder for a lot less money.

Taking the ultra-long view, however, the situation is somewhat troubling.

Other casinos are looking at it as a low-cost (NO cost) way of paying their floor supervisors. I think that the situation at the Wynn is unique just because of the huge money involved. I see the numbers at other casinos, and only the dealers at Caesars Palace come close to making Wynn-type of money on consistent basis. It could never happen at Caesars, being part of the Harrahs universe, because then Harrahs would have to implement the same policy at all of their properties, and that just has disaster written all over it. With all of the grind-joints they own, plus the fact that their average dealer probably makes around $55k per year it would signal the end of table games in Vegas, which in turn would signal the end of Vegas.

The end of table games?

Yep. Think about this. If every casino started implementing Wynn's policy of stealing tokes to pay the floor supervisors, what is the natural progression?

First of all, just like a call-center, the front-line employees would be doing everything they could to 'get off the phones' and get a support job, meaning that eventually, you'll run out of long-term dealers--the backbone of any casino--the guys who've been dealing for 20 or 30 years and have seen it all, the people who make the floor supervisors jobs easy. Few people will want to deal anymore--they'll just use it as a springboard to another job, dues to be paid, if you will.

Talent always follows the money.

In turn, this will cause customer service to suffer, and tokes will go down even more. Eventually the only people willing to deal table games will be those non-English speaking folks right off the boat willing to work for bad wages because they don't yet know any better. This will drive players away even further.

You'll then see casinos reacting to the slowdown in table game revenues by starting to take out a few tables here and there and replace them with much more lucrative slot machines.

Eventually, the tipping point will be reached and some casinos will go to almost exclusively slot machines, (Harrahs, pick up the white paging phone...) and the few table games they have will be high-limit only. Places like Mermaids will become the rule, not the exception. The current generation of video-game addicted youths who have no social-interaction skills won't mind that everything is slot machines and video poker (hence the popularity of games like Rapid Roulette). Once that is the accepted norm, you can start nailing the coffin shut on Las Vegas. Seriously--who's going to come to Las Vegas if it's all slot machines? The city will spend a generation in the wilderness, just like it did from the seventies to the late eighties.

It'll take that long before somebody realizes that table games are a needed commodity here in Vegas, and the people standing behind the green felt need to be dealt with fairly.

Maybe then, some visionary casino developer will ride into town, breathing new life into a once-great city with a new casino concept that attracts new players and creates a buzz. Let's just hope that this time around he pays his floor supervisors a decent wage once he makes his first billion.

Mikey

PS. According to the latest issue of The Dealers News, since Wynn implemented his new toke policy, the dealers are only losing about $25 per day, so it seems to be working, according to the blurb. Basic math, however, tells me that it works out to $125 less per week, $500 less per month, and $6000 less per year. Anybody out there wanna take a six grand pay cut per year and give it to your boss? Anyone?