Over-expectation about Tertiary Casino Courses

lotus999 SG

let hope none of us here has taken up such courses with great expectation. article from littlespeck.com

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

fymk SG

Yeap = most of the casino managers know how to deal a deck ....they are mostly old hands at dealing.

They should have offered courses in probability and statistics - that way the grads if they can't find a job in casino management.....they can work the casino's baccarat system Smile or join teaching

AndrewPKYap SG

click to link:
Do you want to help increase loss of jobs, alcoholism, divorce, bankruptcy, and suicide rates?

4getmenot SG

yes thats true, i got a friend working in a walkers hill casino in seoul and yes it takes some years of experience from bottom up to become a manager in a casino. i just hope those who are attending the course also know that and dun end expecting a managerial job when they graduate.. Rolling Eyes

ditzy SG

I foresee the casinos here run the same way as most government departments. Many many red tape and inflexibility. Laughing

sg mata SG

Laughing

mistyblue SG

and with good grades and scholarship, the path to top super scale grades is just to hang on to the job and write some nonsense papers, while ever having to do any work.

Atobe SG

The problem with education is that it is basic normal day-to-day events made into a complex art form in order to maintain the narrow exclusivity of the few that attempt to maintain their exclusive flavor.

The little knowledge from those few claiming to be experts will collaborate to preserve their exclusivity - by creating impossibly difficult benchmarks, and putting the simple every day knowledge into some complexly written form for the ad verbatim regurgitation that will be subject to being examined by this ''small circle of experts''.