Casino Dealer Schools
When you hear the word school images of books, papers, and pens probably come to mind, but at the Crescent School of Gaming & Bartending in Gulfport, Miss., they’re substituting books for poker chips.
Crescent Schools were founded in 1983 in New Orleans, Louis. They were created with the purpose to train and produce professional bartenders, beverage managers, and casino dealers. The Crescent Schools now have four locations in addition to New Orleans. They are found in Las Vegas, Tunica Resorts, and Gulfport, Miss.
Gold Strike Casino Tunica Ms
Casino Gaming. Crescent's Casino Dealer Training programs provide up-to-the-minute, relevant instruction on all the latest gaming trends and techniques. What you learn is based on the primary skills employers want to see in the dealers they hire AND what players like to see in the dealers they interact with and tip on the casino floor.
Tunica Resorts and Gulfport, Miss. are two of the prominent casino destinations in Mississippi today. The Gulfport location currently has a student population of 230, of which Darrel Washington, Admissions Associate, says is very well mixed.
“There are almost equal numbers of male and females,” Washington said. “The typical age of students is 21-60 and everyone is looking for jobs.”
The Crescent Schools start new classes every Monday. Classes run Monday through Friday, morning and night, and there are two options for courses. Crescent Schools offer a 350-hour Two Game Dealing Program and a 750-hour Comprehensive Dealing Program. The students receive “on the job training” in a room that imitates an actual casino floor. The games covered in the courses include blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, and mini-baccarat.
Students who graduate from the Crescent Schools have an advantage over others because the schools are some of the few accredited dealer schools in the United States. They are nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training, as well as, the United States Department of Education to participate in Federal Financial Assistance programs.
“Students who can’t afford the $700 to $10,000 for classes are able to apply and receive financial aid to pay for their training,” said Washington.
The schools are also licensed by the Nevada Commission on Post – Secondary Education, the Louisiana Department of Education, the Mississippi Department of Education, and the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
The Crescent Schools are the only accredited casino dealer schools in Mississippi which provides the graduates with plenty of job opportunities once they graduate.
“The Treasure Bay Casino, Island View, Silver Slipper, and Golden Nugget are most supportive of our graduates,” said Washington.
Samantha Rippon
CASINO INDUSTRY
Casinos in Tunica, Mississippi are experiencing a déjà vu moment as they face the worst national economy since opening their doors in 1992.
Casinos were originally brought to Tunica to improve the economy and to create an influx of jobs for Mississippi residents, specifically those in Tunica. At the height of Tunica’s gaming industry, 15,000 people were employed, according to Webster Franklin, President and CEO of the Convention of Visitors Bureau in Tunica. Today, 6,970 are employed in the Northern Mississippi casino region, according to the Mississippi Gaming Quarterly Survey.
Following Harrah’s closing on June 2, 2014, 1,300 employees were put out of work.
“The gaming industry as a whole has not really changed their product offering. You still have that blackjack table, you still have that slot machine,” said Franklin. “The games have changed some but you still have that basic premise. I think that’s the struggle that the gaming industry as a whole has, not just in Tunica, but how does it remain relevant in the changing environment. When that takes place, and if there are changes that the gaming industry comes up with, will the regulators keep pace that will allow for laws to change so that we remain competitive in changing with the industry itself?”
Casinos are turning their focus to the customer’s experience by employing people who can offer them more than the chance to win. The industry has geared more toward the entertainment side of the business.
“Our biggest thing is people who are customer-centric. They have to be focused on the customer because with people not spending as much money as they used to to game, you got to be offering them more than just a chance to win. You need to offer them a night of entertainment, a good relationship with the employee to keep their loyalty,” said Nancy Rosenburg, Director of Recruitment and Training and Human Resources Administrator at Horseshoe Casino in Tunica.
Casinos are taking a different approach when looking to hire new employees. At Horseshoe Casino, an interview panel method is used. Job candidates are placed into a group of up to 30 people to answer questions.
“We just ask basic questions, like ‘please introduce yourself and if a movie were to be made about you, who would play you in that role and why.’ It’s a fun question, but it gives you an idea of what people think about themselves, and who they also like in the entertainment industry because we consider ourselves entertainment,” Rosenburg said.
Rosenburg’s employees range from ages 21 to 80.
“There’s no set demographic. Now at horseshoe, you cannot be a start up dealer. What we usually do that at Roadhouse. We take the people right out of dealing school and we put them at the tables over there, once they have developed their skill and gotten really comfortable then they can move over to Horseshoe,” Rosenburg said.
The employees have no shortage of options and learn how to handle multiple games. There is an average of 10,087 slot games, 311 table games, and 44 poker games in Mississippi, according to the Mississippi Gaming Commission Quarterly Survey from April 1 to June 30, 2014.
Roadhouse Casino also has the only surviving poker room in Tunica, which attracts both clientele and employees.
“We have beat out all the poker rooms so we have actually been able to attract not only all the players, but then the best poker dealers in the market to work at our poker room. These dealers are willing to work on call, which means we just call them when we need them, until we can get them a more regular schedule,” Rosenburg said.
Besides the economic effects, the casino industry is also feeling seasonal pressure. According to Franklin, the springtime is the most popular time in Tunica for gambling, while winter months suffer.
“March, April, and May are probably our biggest times. Then it goes throughout the summer. It begins to slow down in November through Christmas,” Franklin said. “Then it comes back pretty big during the New Year, the celebration, that type of thing. We will fall back off in January, February, and come back in March. So the winter months it goes down considerably. It’s the holidays, people are watching what they’re spending more.”
Horseshoe Casino appeals to their higher clientele by offering a plane program that brings people in to gamble from out of state. This gives high rollers easier access to gamble at their casinos. The plane program is an example of the effort of casinos trying to override the lull in the economy.
“The gaming industry right now as a whole is going through a transition in that the 60 year old of 15 years ago is much different from the 60 year old today. They expect a lot different. And in 15 years, that 60 year old is going expect a whole lot different,” said Franklin. “The challenge to the gaming industry as a whole is how does it remain a viable form of entertainment for the discretionary dollar, that is limited.”
(Ginny Luckie, Lindsay Langston, Samantha Rippon)
CASINO ENFORCEMENT
Many people have never been in a casino. Even those who have, however, have no idea what kind of security is needed to run a gaming establishment.
There are several levels of security set up to ensure safety and compliance for Tunica casinos. Among these are the security department within the establishment, the Mississippi Gaming Commission Tunica Field Office and the Tunica County Sheriff’s Office.
At Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, approximately 100 people are employed in the security department. Staff members also receive assistance from the technology installed throughout the grounds.
“Our technology is based on three main priorities: protecting the employees, protecting the guests or protecting the physical property,” TU2 Security Manager Jason Williams said. “In all three cases we would consider those company assets.”
Among technology used are key trackers, ID and fingerprint scanners and cameras. Cameras are designed to be undetectable and their whereabouts kept secret.
“It would be what we would consider proprietary, so to discuss the number of cameras we have on the casino floor or what the cameras see or to discuss whether or not we use undercover agents or to discuss daily routines of the individuals could give you an opportunity to manipulate areas that we may be weak in to perpetrate a crime against the casino,” Williams said.
The Horseshoe Casino Security Department works closely with the Mississippi Gaming Commission and the Tunica County Sheriff’s Department.
“I actually employ deputies for various events, much like most law enforcement officers who subcontract out,” Williams said, “depending on the event we would subcontract out Tunica County as well.”
The security department takes whatever steps necessary to ensure the success of its ultimate goal, which is securing the well being of its visitors.
“There’s a variety of reasons that my staff is here to include obviously the general safety of all the people that come onto the property,” said Williams, “as well as ensure that the individuals that are here are of proper age to be here, and there is a perception that casinos have an abundance of money and therefore we have to protect that.”
Another individual that the Horseshoe Security Department deals with on a daily basis is a gaming agent from the Mississippi Gaming Commission Tunica Field Office.
Gaming agents work for the state to perform a variety of audits for the property to ensure that it is operating within the approved guidelines of the gaming regulations as well as those of Tunica County. They also investigate complaints and disputes filed by patrons.
“A lot of times people assume we’re in cahoots with the casino when that’s actually not true,” Gaming Commission Division Director Patricia Johnson said. “We’re here to help and listen.”
The Tunica Field Office, which is made up of an enforcement division and a compliance division, is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is comprised of 11 agents.
While complaints are not uncommon, the most frequent cases agents deal with are dealer-patron collusion and employee embezzlement. The field office averages one arrest every month, but that number often increases around holiday time.
“It goes in spurts, usually from October to January,” said field agent Scott Kistler. “Because of the holidays people tend to need money more so they tend to take money out of their cash drawers.”
The Tunica County Field Office has a specific list of responsibilities when dealing with local casinos. Issues that the field office is not responsible for are handled by the sheriff’s office. These lesser issues might include a small theft, a domestic dispute in the hotel or rape or murder.
“We’ve never butted heads as far as the jurisdiction,” Kistler said. “We work very well with the sheriff’s office.”
The sheriff’s office is another level of safety that frequently gets called in to make arrests after the casino security calls to report a problem.
“There are security rooms where they place people until law enforcement gets there,” said Bettye Hale, Executive Administrative Assistant at the Tunica County Sheriff’s Office. “Normally the sheriff’s department has different zones and there are officers in that zone that respond to the calls in that area, so they don’t have to come all the way from the station, and they’re there within just a few minutes.”
Officers may be called in for any number of reasons, including bar fights, casino robberies or removal of persons not allowed on the casino’s property.
Other crime reports often take longer to uncover. An example of this is prostitution, which requires officers more time and patience.
“They’ll set up situations and the officer will be under cover, and when the women request money and that type of thing they’ll go in and make the bust,” said Hale. “This will go on for a while and they have to be very careful because they don’t know who they are exactly.”
One of the most common type of calls officers receive are those related to the deaths of older casino visitors who expire during their visit.
“When you think about it, a lot of senior citizens are retired and they’re just going to have a good time and they expire,” said Hale. “That’s pretty common.”
In all cases, effective communication with casino security and trust that each branch will do their job solidifies the safety of the casino environment.
“I think the security and surveillance people are so good at what they do that they catch a lot of that before,” said Hale.
(Caroline Callaway, Clancy Smith, Alane Parris)
Casino Overview
Students in Kathleen Wickham’s Advanced Reporting class and Brad Schultz’s Television Documentary Reporting class at the University of Mississippi took a peek inside how casinos in the state of Mississippi affected the welfare of some of the people and communities in the state.
Cities such as Natchez, Tunica, and Philadelphia were a few of the places where students traveled and conducted in depth sit down interviews with city officials and residents. From those interviews, students were able to work together to collectively produce a full length documentary complete with a web page to present to peers, the Meek School of Journalism, and hopefully, Mississippi Public Broadcasting.
Through their hard work, research and dedication, students discovered that casinos in Mississippi are not what they once were, and set out to find the reason why. They focused on the economic and social effects, history, politics, and casino enforcement among other things to reveal the problems and changes that need to be made within the state of Mississippi concerning casinos.
Students working on the Philadelphia portion did extensive research and interviews. They focused on The Choctaw Indian Reservation, which sits across 10 counties in east Mississippi on 35,000 acres of land. Living amongst eight reservation communities, consisting of Bogue Chitto, Bogue Homa, Conehatta, Crystal Ridge, Pearl River, Red Water, Standing Pine and Tucker, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians consists of nearly 10,000 members.
When the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed, there were over 19,000 Choctaws in Mississippi. Between 1831 and 1833, almost 13,000 Choctaws were removed to the West. Members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are descendants of Choctaw individuals who refused to leave and relocate to Oklahoma.
Nevertheless, life has since changed over the past 150 years on the reservation. On July 1, 1994, the Pearl River Casino Resort opened its doors. Bringing in on average, $100 million a year, the casino has become a cash cow for the reservation.
Businesses in the Philadelphia, MS area benefit from the presence of the Pearl River Resort and Casino, but no one benefits more from the casino than the Choctaw Tribe who reside on the actual reservation. Local businesses benefit from the tribe, but are regulated under the tribe’s jurisdiction, which causes friction amongst the parties.
Local businesses that were around before the casinos opened have been able to keep their doors open due to the influx of tourism the casino has brought into Philadelphia, Miss. The local Walmart upgraded to a Super Walmart as a result of the increase of tourism as well as permanent jobs. Along with local businesses thriving, new business chains rooted themselves in the area as well to benefit from the local economy.
Starting from a life of unemployment and poverty, the Choctaw Tribe worked their way into creating a prosperous life for themselves and those in need around them.
Students working on the Tunica, Miss. portion of the story unearthed copious amounts of information as they conducted candid interviews with longtime residents and officials of the small town. Throughout the semester students found that despite a series of setbacks to the gaming industry in Tunica, once the poorest county in the nation, the town has benefitted greatly from the arrival of casinos in 1994.
Many may argue that “rags to riches” is an understatement. Webster Franklin, president and CEO of the Tunica Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, can recall when there was nothing in his town.
“In 1994, there was not one stretch of four-lane road in Tunica, Miss.,” Franklin said. “In 1994, there were 20 hotel rooms in Tunica, Miss.”
Things soon changed.
“In 1995 we grew to be the largest gaming destination in the country,” Franklin said.
According to him, the gaming industry has created over 2.5 billion dollars in tax revenue, from Tunica alone, to the state of Mississippi over a 20 year time period. In addition, it has built infrastructure, a road system, an airport, an arena, and many other businesses.
Poor decision making and a massive loss of gaming revenue is one of the main reasons Tunica isn’t thriving as it once was. Franklin attributes much of the change to the saturated economy.
“When Mississippi allowed gaming in the Gaming Control Act of 1990, Americans could gamble in Atlantic City, and they could gamble in Nevada,” he said. “Today, all but two states in the U.S. have some sort of gaming, and every American is within a 2 and a half hour drive of a casino. That’s why you’ve seen a 1.2 billion dollar a year industry that employed 16,000 people here in Tunica drop to a 600 million dollar industry and employs about 8,000.”
The county board recently approved a new 36 million dollar budget but need to find more cuts to balance it. As a result of this decrease in finances the county plans to raise property taxes. Tunica County residents expressed concern over the issues on The Tunica Times Facebook page. Comments ranging from questions about the residences of certain county officials, overstaffing, and anger over the fact that no one on the Board of Supervisors suggested they put away money in case of financial emergencies can be viewed on the page.
Casinos were originally brought to Tunica to improve the economy and to create an influx of jobs for Mississippi residents, specifically those in Tunica. At the height of Tunica’s gaming industry, 15,000 people were employed, according to Franklin. Today, 6,970 are employed in the Northern Mississippi casino region, according to the Mississippi Gaming Quarterly Survey.
Casinos are turning their focus to the customer’s experience by employing people who can offer them more than a chance to win. The industry is beginning to lean more toward the entertainment side of the business.
These employers are hired after graduating from one of four casino dealer schools in the state. The only accredited school in the state is, however, is the Crescent School of Gaming of Gaming & Bartending. They are nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training, as well as, the United States Department of Education to participate in Federal Financial Assistance programs.
“Students who can’t afford the $700 to $10,000 for classes are able to apply and receive financial aid to pay for their training,” Darrel Washington, an admissions associate, said.
The schools are also licensed by the Nevada Commission on Post – Secondary Education, the Louisiana Department of Education, the Mississippi Department of Education, and the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
The Crescent Schools start new classes every Monday. These classes run Monday through Friday, morning and night, and there are two options for courses. Crescent Schools offer a 350-hour Two Game Dealing Program and a 750-hour Comprehensive Dealing Program. The students receive “on the job training” in a room that imitates an actual casino floor. The games covered in the courses include blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, and mini-baccarat.
As time has passed, the gambling industry has increased in the state of Mississippi. The Mississippi Gaming Commission now regulates 28 casinos in 6 different counties. It is the responsibility of the MGC to enforce rules, conduct background checks on casino employees, and investigate injustice within the state gambling industry.
One of the challenges during the early stages of Mississippi gambling was setting rules and regulations for the casinos to follow. The first Director of the MGC, Royal Walker Jr., recalled that the state received guidance in creating these regulations from established gambling institutions in Nevada and New Jersey.
“The spirit was, among law enforcement, that we wanted to do it correctly and right,” Walker said.
One way the MGC encourages fairness of the games within the casinos is by requiring that licensed independent testing labs approve all games. Every slot machine in the state goes through these labs and is tested to make sure they have a theoretical payback of 80 percent. This
means that during the lifetime of a machine, that machine must pay back at least 80 percent of every dollar a patron spends. Table games are regulated as well but not quite as strictly.
“Games like blackjack, craps, and roulette kind of have their own inherent odds,” Deputy Director of the MGC, Jay McDaniel said. “If a casino wanted to try a variation to that game, that goes to the lab as well.”
While we have skimmed the surface of where the casino industry stands today, and why, we encourage you to visit the links provided to each of the individual stories to get a better idea of the big picture. Casinos in Mississippi are not what they once were. Let us show you how this happened.
(MarKeicha Dickens and Samantha Rippon )