What Again????

By Mary

Apparently Rex doesn't feel like blogging today either....guess I will have to fill in again!!

I almost mentioned this in my last blog but really wasn't sure if I should. Lake Tahoe casinos make a large percentage of their annual income in July. We really don't know what that percentage is but part of the reason July is so big is because of the Celebrity Golf Tournament. It only stands to reason that if the casinos make good money in July so do the dealers.

First of all you need to understand how this works. Tokes (otherwise known as tips) for dealers are based on how much money is taken in and the amount of hours worked. There are two shifts...day shift and swing shift. Day shift dealers are dealers that have start times ranging from 6AM to 2 PM. Swing dealers have start times ranging from 4 PM to 10PM. Rex and I are day shift dealers. The hourly "toke rate" is computed on a daily basis. Dealers are paid minimum wage by the casinos so any money above that amount comes from the players. As you can imagine that amount can vary greatly. So anyway here are some of the toke numbers that have been made by dealers during this golf tournament----

85 dollars an hour
75 dollars an hour
60 dollars an hour
50 dollars an hour
40 dollars an hour
23 dollars an hour

Now comes some more information.....
We work at Harvey's which is across the street from and also owned by Harrah's. Harrah's is the actual official "host" for the Celebrity Golf Tournament. They also try real hard to keep the celebrities in that casino and I might add they are pretty successful at it. Were you paying attention to which casino we work at??? You also need to keep in mind which shift we work. Now I am going to go through the about list again.

$85 an hour.........Harvey's Swing Shift
$75 an hour..........Harrah's Swing Shift
$60 an hour..........Harrah's Swing Shift
$50 an hour...........Harrah's Swing Shift
$40 an hour............Harrah's Day Shift
$23 an hour..............Harvey's Day Shift

So as you can see the only bonanza money we made was $23 and hour for a Harvey's Day Shift which we were really happy with until we heard what the swing dealers were making. Then it really pales by comparison!! Oh and the $40 an hour made by the Harrah's day shift dealers....that day Rex happened to get sent to Harrah's for 6.25 hours...yup he made over $253 for 6.25 of work. Cool....that same day I made $12 an hour for 8 hours of work. I made a total of $101 for those 8 hours!! Oh well that's the way it goes.....at least that is what I keep telling myself!