Recent studies and survey reveal that human-capital considerations top the list of current managerial concerns in the gaming industry. They have good reason.
Many sources document that nearly 50% of all losses incurred by casinos are attributed to employee theft. According to the Nevada Gaming Commission, approximately 34 percent of those arrested for theft or cheating in casinos were the casinos’ own staff members.
The major types of employee theft / misdeeds include:
- Cash-handling positions on the gaming floor;
- Watering down drinks;
- Fraudulent recording of amount of time spent gambling by patrons;
- Drinking on the job, drug use, loitering;
- Theft of alcohol, food and meat;
- Theft of guest possessions;
- Patron theft (of winnings, purses, chips, etc.)
Casinos must divert more resources to recruiting and selecting potential employees who are dependable, honest, and customer focused. It is suggested that casino management should adopt a comprehensive employee screening tool kit to screen out high risk candidates. HR managers of casinos should adopt selection tools to choose employees with better personality fit, general reasoning abilities, and positive work attitude.
For example, online personality tests are helpful to assess some important traits in casino and gaming workers such as agreeableness, the degree to which someone is trusting, amiable, cooperative, and open-minded; emotional stability, the degree to which someone is confident, reserved, and poised especially in stressful situations; and conscientiousness, the degree to which an employee will follow the rules, show up for work, and follow-through.