Now this is a touchy subject…On August 21st, 2006 Steve Wynn announced to Dealers and other table games employees that he would change the tipping structure for dealers. Previously, Dealers were paid an hourly wage, and the bulk of their income came from customer tips, which were counted by a committee of dealers and distributed among other dealers on that shift. Casino supervisors, or pit bosses were paid a salary and therefore ineligible for tips.
After the change, a percentage of the dealer’s tips would go to the supervisors, reducing dealer’s income. Additionally, tip counting duties would be handled by other casino employees, not dealers.
Unsurprisingly, this caused an uproar among Wynn employees, as well as other dealers in town, fearing this precedent might someday affect them. Depending on who you listen to, the Wynn dealers seemingly make between $20k a year, and $530k, it’s that confusing.
Here’s the crux of the issue:
Opponents of this plan say that you are basically stealing money from the dealer’s pockets, which is hard to argue with on the surface. Also, taking away the tip counting duties from the dealers seems like a potential problem area, opening the door for corruption or other shenanigans.
Folks on Wynn’s side point to the fact that Wynn dealers are the best paid on the strip, before and after the change. Paying front-line employees more than their supervisors was wrong, and this leveled the playing field, as there was no desire to advance and grow as an employee.
I think the main sticking point here is the different sides’ discrepancy on how much money actually changes hands. I’ve read anywhere from less than 10% to over 15%, from $10k a year, to over $30k. I’ve also seen contradicting numbers that Wynn Dealers made over $100k a year (with tips of course, dealers make close to minimum wage before tips) prior to the change, and supervisors $60k. After the redistribution, dealers make $90k and supervisors $95k. (These numbers are coming from Wynn)
A few different complaints and lawsuits have been filed by Wynn Dealers, and are either pending or have been thrown out. The legality of the change may be a bit blurry, but Wynn’s influence over the state legislature isn’t.
In a recent interview with In Business Las Vegas Steve Wynn states:
In fact, Wynn said dealers made just as much in tips in February as they did in February 2006, and he predicted that dealer income would drop by less than the 10 percent to 15 percent he had originally estimated last summer.
Now I’m not exactly sure where I fall on this issue, as I really don’t have a horse in the race, and I don’t own any Wynn Stock (I wish I would have bought 3 years ago though). Personally I hope the above quotes are true. We are generally Wynn fans in the casino design sense, (4 on the Wynn-o-Meter) and love the Wynn Las Vegas property. Granted I’d be mad as hell if someone docked my pay by 15%, but then again I don’t make the money that Wynn dealers supposedly make.
Either way though, it looks like this new policy is going to stick, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see this become the norm as opposed to the exception in the near future. We will keep you up to date on any developments.
(An additional thing, one of the leading advocates in the fight against this is David McKee at the Las Vegas Business Press, the same guy we wrote about earlier for running an April Fool’s joke as a legit story…makes it even harder to decide who to believe.)
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