A
career
In casinos
Integrated resorts stir over-expectation about tertiary
casino courses.
Jun 30, 2007
Some
hard questions
SammyBoy forum
By SingaCrew
After the government's announcement that casinos will be
coming to Singapore, the various polytechnics started their
Casino Management diploma courses.
I assume
these courses are meant to pave the way for the graduate
to take up management posts at these coming casinos.
Now,
I have been around the world a bit. One of the places I
have been to is Vegas: City of Casinos. It would be a lie
to say I was there just to do a little look see.
You
go to Vegas, you are there to play the table. Or at least
a few rounds with the one armed bandit.
One
of the things I picked up from my Vegas days is how casinos
operate.
There's
the dealers working the tables and the pit boss or supervisor
in charge of these dealers and above the pit boss you have
the casino managers.
From
my conversations with some casino employees I know, it takes
years of experience working the table to get a promotion
to pit boss level.
Then
it takes even more years of stellar performance to be put
in charge of the casino operations as a manager.
Dazzled
by all that Vegas glamour, I had the brutal truth thrown
in my face when I asked about a job at one of the casinos.
'You don't get out of college, wet behind your ears and
expect to be a manager do you? You little schmuck!'
To translate
for the Singlish reader, it means you can't just do a course
at NUS (National University of Singapore) or polytechnic
and immediately can become manager of casino one.
When
these people say experience, they mean years. Not your 6
months industry attachment ok?
So my
question is, has the local polytechnics made any deals with
the casinos operators to hire their graduates?
Granted
that it will give the first batch of graduates several more
years to learn before the first casino gets up and running,
it is still mind boggling to imagine any shrewd businessman
is going to give management positions to fresh young things
in a billion dollar empire.
Where
are these poly graduates going to pick up the ins and outs
of the gambling trade?
They
would have to start off as dealers at the table and work
their way up! There are just so many cons that can be pulled
off in front of the inexperienced dealer.
They
even made documentaries about those con jobs in Vegas. There
is just no way in hell any sane casino operator will put
green horns with less than years of experience in charge
of running tables, let alone managing an entire casino.
Isn't
it logical to assume that these operators will bring in
their experienced staff from Australia or wherever to work
the table? This is normal business practice.
Experienced
staff to get new branches operational. I just can't imagine
these experienced hard-nosed dealers being ordered about
by our poly grads. It wouldn't work out.
So the
next logical step is for these operators to bring in their
own management staff, right? So where does that leave our
casino management courses graduates?
Not
just from our polytechnics, but private schools seem to
be jumping onto the casino wagon it seems.
It looks
like another biotech fiasco happening. Maybe they will have
retail positions at the IRs for our budding 'casino managers'?
This
post is not meant to slam the lack of management talents
amongst our poly graduates. But rather it is an observation
about the knee jerk reaction of our education system.
They
go into any new fads popping up and forget about the whole
point of education in the first place. Why aren't there
any diplomas in social science and humanities?
Don't
we need more social workers? Especially when our suicide
statistics is one per day.
Are
the ones in charge of our education system not learning
anything? What happened to our batch of engineering students
from the 1990s?
Last
I heard, we are moving from a manufacturing industry to
becoming a financial hub.
So what
will happen to the factories? And I have been hearing wise
cracks about our biotech graduates 'washing test tubes'
at the Biopolis. - SingaCrew
Chupacabra
This have been discuss before. The government says that
the IRs are going to create 35,000 jobs. I think the max
number of jobs will come to about 4000 with at least half
going to foreigners.
I do
not think that these management graduates are going to find
it easy in securing the jobs they want. How many managers
does a casino needs?
I do
not see a lot of spin off business either as Marina bay
has all the supporting businesses already. They talk as
if Marina Bay is a desert and therefore has plenty of room
for expansion.
As there
is no minimum wage here, I do not see the wages on the casino
floor near those of western counterparts.
It always
starts out rosy with ‘ang moh’ companies here
but after awhile they adapt to local standards in terms
of wages.
There
are now tons of FTs working in the hotel and F&B services
who are willing to work for far less money. All these casino
manager courses are a sham. Instead they should have more
courses on gambling itself.
Un-Starhub
Can't agree with you more.
(With lots of experienced Filipino, (mainland) Chinese,
and Malaysian dealers and supervisors around, who in their
right mind will hire inexperienced Singaporeans at two or
three times the wages?
And
these foolish Singaporeans think that just by attending
some kuching kurak (small-tme) courses, paying S$3,000-$4,000
in the process, will land them some pit boss or supervisors
positions.
When
the time comes for hiring, they will be in for a rude shock!
Jun 30, 2007
