Members of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC), after reviewing a report on the recovery of the state’s three casinos from the Covid-19 shutdowns in 2020, have told officials of MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor they need to hire or rehire more dealers and open up more table games and poker tables.
Just before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, MGM Springfield had 444 table-game and poker dealers, supervisors and managers. Today, there are 269 employees. Encore had 1,064 table-game and poker employees pre-pandemic, and now has 1,001. While the casino had more table games—184—in July than the 167 it operated in March 2020, the poker tables have shrunk from 74 to just 15.
Plainridge Park is a slot-only casino. Although it operates fewer machines now than pre-pandemic, an impact on jobs was not noted by the regulators.
Gaming commissioners said last week that MGM and Encore need to increase table operations to meet their obligation under the gaming law to provide jobs.
“Of course, the reason why this is important is the less table games they have, the more they look like a slots parlor,” commented MGC Chair Cathy Judd-Stein, according to masslive.com. “And that’s not, Commissioner (Brad) Hill, what you and your legislative colleagues envisioned back when gaming was expanded. We want the full complement of games, not only because that’s what our patrons want, but also the jobs that are attached.”
MGM Springfield spokesperson Beth Ward declined to answer questions related to plans on reopening poker tables, according to the news site. But Bruce Band, deputy director for the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau at the MGC, said MGM is trying to hire more dealers.
“I know they have had trouble re-hiring dealers there, from what we’ve been told,” he told MassLive. “They will get some people and they will leave for some other position.”
