Critics: Casino courses lag behind occupational growth

Kevin Ferguson

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001 | 9:19 a.m.

Colleges and universities around the country have gradually added casino-related courses to their curriculum, but critics say higher education outside of Nevada has yet to catch up with the industry's dramatic growth.

As a result, some casino occupations suffer from high turnover rates because employees start work unprepared or with preconceived notions of what it's like to work in the industry, said a panel of gaming professors at a gambling industry conference in Las Vegas last week.

Budgetary constraints and a stigma attached to gaming make it challenging for gaming professors to convince administrators to boost funding, said Kathryn Hashimoto, a professor of hotel, restaurant and tourism at the University of New Orleans.

She said one sector of casino employment that suffers from high turnover is restaurants.

"That's because responsibilities of casino restaurant managers are different from other restaurants," Hashimoto said. "The managers (for casinos) have to know how to budget for comps."

Hashimoto said newly hired casino restaurant managers with little or no gaming industry experience are also often frustrated with having to order specific items for high rollers.

Most colleges and universities that offer gaming-related courses do so as an extension to their hotel/tourism management programs.

The University of New Orleans is in a state with legalized riverboat casinos and one land-based casino, Harrah's New Orleans.

The university offers two casino-related courses: casino management and table game probabilities. The latter course includes information on games surveillance.

Hashimoto said the university had planned to expand its program since the university is close to Mississippi, a state with numerous casinos -- and a law that forbids its public schools from teaching casino courses.

"But the demand for our gaming program has been too small because of the ambivalence of gaming in New Orleans," she said.

Brian Richard, senior research analyst for the Mississippi Gaming Association, said the industry supports lifting the ban on gaming education in Mississippi public schools, but does not vigorously lobby for such legislation.

"We feel it would benefit the people of Mississippi, but our properties seem to be able to find employees who are trained out of state," Richard said.

Shannon Bybee, executive director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, International Gaming Institute, agreed that gaming still has a stigma attached to it in the academic world even though 48 states have legalized some form of gambling.

"The attitude in academia is that how to run a casino is not proper to be taught at a university," Bybee said. "But that has been slowly changing."

UNLV has about 400 students per year in its dozen casino-related courses, Bybee said. The program also offers seminars for industry professionals.

The classes cover human resources, marketing, casino management, gaming regulation and games-probabilities. The courses are taught as part of the university's hotel management program.

The University of Nevada, Reno, gaming program has 60 to 75 students enrolled in nine casino-related courses, said Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at UNR.

Two of UNR's newly added casino courses focus on crisis management and methods for turning around financially troubled companies.

UNR has also developed partnerships in teaching casino-related courses with universities in Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Years back, most people in the gaming industry believed the only way to learn about casino management was through hands-on experience, starting at the bottom and working their way up the ladder, Eadington said.

"But that has changed dramatically because of the evolving legitimacy of the industry and the fact that most (large casinos) are now owned by publicly traded companies," Eadington said.

The Community College of Southern Nevada offers an associate degree in casino management.

David Hernandez, chairman of CCSN's resort and gaming program, said the community college averages about 500 students in its gaming courses per year.

"Not all of our students are seeking a degree," Hernandez said. "Some are (gaming) industry people who come for retraining so they can get a promotion."

Panelists on the issue at the Global Gaming Expo said courses like casino technology, surveillance and casino management are important for universities to offer as more and more U.S. and international jurisdictions legalize some form of gambling.

But funding for these programs is often difficult to come by for higher education institutions, said Peter LaMacchia, director of casino studies at Suny Morrisville, a state college in New York.

Conversely, UNLV's Bybee and CCSN's Hernandez said they have not needed to turn away students due to lack of funding.

LaMacchia said one way of getting the gaming industry to finance part of the college courses is to ask casino executives what types of trained employees they need. Universities then should adopt courses accordingly, he said.

Suny Morrisville, which is in a state with only two Indian casinos, started its casino-related courses in 1997. It now offers a degree in gaming and casino management.

LaMacchia said most of Suny Morrisville's gaming students go on to work in Nevada, Atlantic City, N.J., or Biloxi, Miss.

The program offers insight into legal and regulatory issues and advanced technology, such as table game surveillance and casino-hotel security.

Suny Morrisville has about 65 students in its gaming courses, LaMacchia said.