My thoughts about dealing in my retirement years for fun and a little extra income were all but shattered.
Keep that dream alive! Sure, dealing at my casino wasn't the dream job I thought it would be, but it may be a perfect fit for you or anyone here.
One big reason I left was that I originally hoped to make $25 an hour working part-time, maybe three or four shifts per week. Where I worked, you pretty much had to work all the time, and they had odd rules as to when you qualified for tips (and when you didn't), and other things that reduced your salary because they weren't very up-front about the whole process.
When I got hired, they immediately put me on the schedule for five days a week, eight hours a day. A few weeks later, it was six days, because we had to "cover' people who quit or called in sick. I went to HR and told them I really only wanted to work part-time. They responded by saying, "Sure, you can be part time -- as soon as we have enough dealers." In the break room every day, you'd hear that this or that dealer quit, and that the dealer classes were not producing new dealers fast enough to replace the people who quit.
And the promise of $25? Never even got close to that. The most I ever made working there was maybe $12 an hour.
The casino ended up charging dealers for lots of stuff they originally said was "free," and, in the end, they actually reduced the hourly wage and claimed we'd make it up in tips. Because they were going below Pennsylvania's minimum wage, we had to sign a form saying we each agreed. It was put in front of you and you pretty much had to sign if you wanted to work there. If you refused, you weren't "fired," but you were effectively quitting, because you didn't agree to the wage. And they "owned" your state gaming license for two years -- a little tradeoff for giving you the classes. So you were pretty much trapped into working for them. As soon as you accept the job, they pretty much own you, because they own the license until you get past the two-year mark. You'll work whenever they say, for whatever they want to pay you, and like it, or get fired and lose the license. I chose to quit.
But that's one casino.
In short, if you have better casinos in your area -- ones that actually treat their employees better and pay what they say -- it might be a fantastic job for you.
And now you know why I never name the casino. They have lawyers who'd sue me for what I've disclosed on PCF.