Wynn Las Vegas Dealers Win Tip-Sharing Fight, Casino Overhauls Rules Set by Company Founder

Posted on: October 25, 2018, 07:17h. 

Last updated on: October 25, 2018, 11:48h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

Dealers at Wynn Las Vegas will soon no longer be required to share their tips with other casino floor workers after the company changed its rules that were set more than a decade ago by its disgraced founder.

Wynn Las Vegas dealers tip casino
Wynn Las Vegas dealers have won their fight to keep all of their tips. (Image: Jae Hong/AP/Yelp/Casino.org)

A year after Wynn Las Vegas opened in 2005, billionaire Steve Wynn instituted a rule requiring table game dealers to share their tips with other casino personnel, specifically “casino service team leads.” The mandate was in response to dealers making more than their supervisors, as the luxury resort drew in high rollers who tipped handsomely.

The policy required dealers to put around 12 percent of their tips into a pool, which was then distributed to the team leads. Since 2006, the dealers have been fighting with Wynn Resorts management to stop tip sharing. Twelve years later, the dealers are finally getting their way.

“Everyone is excited. It has been a long time coming, a long struggle,” Wynn dealer Kanie Kastroll told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The new policy will go into effect on November 12.

Pay Overhauls

Wynn Resorts confirmed that dealers will no longer share tips with their supervisors. But numerous compensation changes are accompanying the decision.

Though Wynn Resorts argued for more than a decade that “casino service team leads” were not supervisors, and were therefore eligible to collect tips from dealers, the company announced this week that those employment positions are being removed. Their new titles will be “casino supervisor.”

“The casino service team lead position is being eliminated and a new position of casino supervisor will be created,” Wynn spokesman Michael Weaver explained. “As a result, dealers will be the only members of the tip pool.”

Casino supervisors will receive a 33 percent pay hike to $37.50 an hour, or about $78,000 per year. Meanwhile, dealers will see their hourly wage decrease by $1 to $8.25.

Wynn Resorts said the casino supervisor positions will involve “extensive” duties including “coaching and training of table games employees.” Current service team leads able to perform the supervisory duties will be offered the new positions.

Tip of the Iceberg

While Wynn Las Vegas dealers are celebrating the news that they will no longer have to share their tips, their fight isn’t over. Kastroll says the tip-sharing requirement cost dealers about $10,000 a year, and that adds up to around $50 million in lost wages over the last dozen years.

“We still want our back money,” Kastroll declared. “It made a lot of people lose a lot of money. Personally, I would say $150,000 for me.”

Kastroll claims the lost tips created more than just financial hardship.

“Depression, a lot of emotional issues, health issues that were exasperated by their stress, suicides, bankruptcy, foreclosures,” Kastroll told Las Vegas Now. “It’s a great start, but it can be so much better when we can get paid what money we’ve been missing for 12 long years.”