Casinos depend on vault clerks to maintain accurate levels of currency, cash and tokens transported between vaults, cage cashiers and customers. Casino vault clerks withdraw currency and tokens from vaults before their shifts, distribute them among various cage cashiers and reconcile the balances before they leave. To reconcile balances, these clerks must compare the purchase and payout invoices to final currency and token inventories. If you want to be a casino vault clerk, you need a high school degree and experience working with large cash collections and disbursements. You can expect to earn slightly over $20,000 annually.
Income and Qualifications
Casino vault clerks usually earn by the hour. They made average annual incomes of $23,000 as of 2013, according to the job website Indeed. This equates to $11.06 per hour, based on a 40-hour workweek. To become a casino vault clerk, you only need a high school degree. Many employers also prefer that you have one or two years of experience in a casino or bank handling large cash transactions. Other essential requirements include an attention to detail and data-entry, computer keyboarding, math, communication and customer service skills.
Income by Region
In 2013, average salaries for casino vault clerks varied slightly within the four U.S. regions. In the Northeast region, they earned the highest salaries of $28,000 in New York and the lowest of $20,000 in Maine. Those in the West made between $16,000 and $25,000 per year, respectively, in Hawaii and California. If you worked as a casino vault clerk in the South, you'd earn $19,000 to $27,000, respectively, in Louisiana or Washington, D.C. Your earnings in the Midwest would be $18,000 or $25,000, respectively, in South Dakota or Illinois, which were the lowest and highest salaries in that region.
Contributing Factors
Vault clerks who work in casinos earn more in Washington, D.C., California and New York because of higher housing and living costs in those places. You may also earn more in less-populated areas if casinos can't find enough talent to fill vault clerk positions. They may then advertise in larger city newspapers to find workers. Moreover, larger casinos are more likely to pay better because they have larger revenue bases to support higher salaries.
Job Outlook
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't project job opportunities for casino vault clerks. It does forecast jobs for tellers -- who also work in vaults -- which will only increase 1 percent in the next decade. While this growth-rate is much slower than average because more people are doing their banking online, you may find more job opportunities for casino vault clerks. The number of casinos is starting to increase as the economy improves. The market research firm IBISWorld projects casinos' revenue contribution to the U.S. economy will grow through 2018.
2016 Salary Information for Tellers
Tellers earned a median annual salary of $27,260 in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the low end, tellers earned a 25th percentile salary of $23,230, meaning 75 percent earned more than this amount. The 75th percentile salary is $31,500, meaning 25 percent earn more. In 2016, 502,700 people were employed in the U.S. as tellers.