Betting On Casino Careers | QCC, UMass courses prepare for expanded gaming in the Bay State
Just two years ago, when Andrew Pellegrini, a 22-year-old Worcester native, entered Quinsigamond Community College with a 1.2 grade-point average, he didn't quite know what he wanted to do for a career.
An adviser encouraged Pellegrini, a gregarious young man, to sign up for a hospitality management course.
“I fell in love with it,” he said.
Fast forward two years: Pellegrini has raised his GPA to a 3.5. After describing at a program review meeting how he enjoyed taking classes at QCC, he was offered a job at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut.
Pellegrini declined the offer, however. He wants to finish his associate’s degree at QCC, then go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in hotel management, with a concentration in gaming. He’s hoping that by the time he graduates in two or three years, there will be casinos in the Bay State, where he can work.
One of the offshoots of expanded gaming in Massachusetts is the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs the resort-style casinos are expected to bring.
And the operators of the casinos will likely be looking for people like Pellegrini, who have been trained in hotel and gaming management.
Schools like QCC and the University of Massachusetts have recognized the potential for gaming education courses, and students and administrators expect increased demand for such programs in the coming years.
Learning To Roll The Dice
QCC and UMass’ Isenberg School of Management are just two of dozens of programs around the country that offer students an opportunity to learn about casino and hospitality management. Students are exposed to many aspects of casino management. From the basics of the games — how to deal in blackjack to how to operate a roulette wheel — all the way through the societal and economic impacts of casinos and expanding gaming, students have an opportunity to learn about a wide variety of topics in the industry.
QCC’s program is a single course within its hospitality management program. While all students in the program take accounting, marketing and customer service courses, they can take an elective: Introduction to Casino Management.
“The primary purpose is to look at those managerial components for a casino that are different from other hospitality management professions,” said Pat Hutchinson, the program’s coordinator.
Two years after the casino course began, Hutchinson said there are about 21 students who take it each semester.
Some aspects of resort-style casino management are similar to those of traditional hospitality management, she said; for example, customer service and lodging management. But casinos have their own kinks as well.
For one, casino employees on a gaming floor must fully understand the rules of each game. Having such knowledge allows students to be hired not only as dealers, but also as low- or mid-level managers, such as a pit boss, who oversees the dealers of the games on the floor.
Hutchinson tries to stay on top of the latest industry trends to make the program as applicable to potential employers as possible. Officials of the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods resorts and casinos act as program advisers.
UMass’ Isenberg School has a similar program, said Haemoon Oh, director for the school’s hospitality management course.
The school offers a casino concentration in its hospitality management program as an online-only associate’s degree.
Oh foresees more demand for the program in the next several years.
“With gaming legalized, we are expecting services to pick up,” he said.
The school offers a basic introductory class on casino management, as well as another that focuses more on the probabilities of the games. There’s also an advanced-level course that explores casinos’ societal and economic impacts.
Where the Jobs Will Be
Having access to such programs can give people looking for casino jobs an edge, said Beth Deighan, president of Casino Careers, a New Jersey-based job placement firm for casinos in the United States.
“It’s not uncommon to see educational institutions sit down and team up with casino managers to get a sense of what the resorts and gaming destinations are looking for,” she said.
Casinos, she said, offer a range of job opportunities in a variety of different sectors, from gaming dealers to technical slot electricians and technicians, to cashiers, accountants, restaurant and bartender staff, to public relations and spa treatment facilities.
While Deighan said new employees will generally be trained by the casinos that hire them, she said having a background and base-level of knowledge is an advantage for applicants.
Pellegrini, the QCC student, certainly hopes that’s the case.
“I think the next set of managers and people in charge of the casino floors are going to come right from here,” he said. “Casinos are going to be looking for people to work there, and we will already have those skills.”
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