Career Trends: Gaming Services Workers

Gaming services workers serve customers in gambling establishments, such as casinos or racetracks. Some workers tend slot machines, deal cards, or oversee other gaming activities such as keno or bingo. Others take bets or pay out winnings. Still others supervise or manage gaming workers and operations.

Most gaming services workers are employed in the casino hotels or gambling industries. Because most establishments are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, employees often must work during nights, weekends, and holidays.

Most gaming jobs require a high school diploma or equivalent. Some casinos may require gaming managers to have a college degree. In addition, all gaming services workers must have excellent customer-service skills.

Employment of gaming services workers is projected to show little or no change from 2014 to 2024. Since some states benefit from casinos in the form of tax revenues, additional states currently without commercial gaming establishments may allow new casinos to be built over the next decade.

This occupation supported 182,200 jobs in 2012 and 131,900 jobs in 2014, reflecting a decline of 27.6%. In 2012, this occupation was projected to increase by 9.8% in 2022 to 200,100 jobs. As of 2014, to keep pace with prediction, the expected number of jobs was 185,700, compared with an observed value of 131,900, 29.0% lower than expected. This indicates current employment trends are much worse than the 2012 trend within this occupation. In 2014, this occupation was projected to increase by 0.5% in 2024 to 132,900 jobs. Linear extrapolation of the 2012 projection for 2022 results in an expected number of 203,600 jobs for 2024, 53.2% higher than the 2014 projection for 2024. This indicates expectations for future employment trends are much worse than the 2012 trend within this occupation.