Casino

If you are interested in working at a casino or a hotel and would like to get some practical experience to put on your resume, you may want to consider an internship program at one of them.

There are a couple of really good reasons why an internship at a casino or a hotel makes sense for students. The first one is that it gives you an opportunity to try out a working environment before graduation. You may find that you are on the right track as far as your plans are concerned, or the right area of specialization for you may be completely different from what you had originally anticipated.

The second reason why an internship at a casino or a hotel is a good move is that it allows you to show a potential employer what kind of employee you would make. Even if you don’t end up being offered a permanent position at the end of your internship, you will be able to indicate that you have some job-related experience on your resume. This will give you an advantage over someone who has only classroom training.

College and university students enrolled in hospitality programs can get help finding available internship programs. The employer does have the final say in whether you will be hired for an internship program, but colleges and universities have staff members who can help you to target your search to opportunities that would best fit your interests.

An internship can be either paid or unpaid, and you can be hired for one during the fall, spring, or summer semesters. Each program is different, but you can expect the internship will last anywhere from three to six months.

Your academic record will be taken into consideration when you are being considered for an internship at a casino or a hotel. A GPA (Grade Point Average) of 3.0 or higher will likely be needed to show these potential employers that you would make a good intern.

Students interested in applying for internship opportunities at casinos and hotels can also look for opportunities online. Some of them will be posted on job boards. Simply use the word “intern” or “internship” when you are conducting your search, along with the word “hotel” or “casino,” as the case may be. You can also limit your search to a particular location by typing in the name of the city or state where you would like to work.

Another strategy you can use to find available internship positions is to contact a potential employer directly. Many hotels and casinos have internship information listed on their web site. It would be listed in the “Jobs” or “Careers” section of the site.

If there is a particular casino or hotel you are interested in that hasn’t offered internships in the past, you can still approach that employer to see if they would be willing to take you on as an intern anyway. Keep in mind that each employer that offers internships has to start somewhere.

When you are looking for a summer internship program, you are not necessarily limited to local jobs. Internships are available nationally, as well as in such countries as South Africa, Mexico, Ireland, Costa Rica, Germany, Spain, Ecuador, France, and more. If you think you would like to get an idea of what working in the hospitality industry in a foreign country might be like, then one of these positions may be just what you are looking for.

Start thinking about where you would like to spend your internship and start applying early for available opportunities. That way, you won’t be disappointed.

By: Jeff Craft

When designing a new gambling location, developers consider casino colors to be very important. One of the strong selling points for a “live” casino is atmosphere : the bright colors, the sounds and the buzz of people being entertained and challenged by their favorite games.

In the early days of Web casino development may of the site owners and operators were striving to recreate the atmosphere of the big-house gambling centers. Since online casino play takes place primarily at home, designers felt they needed to make the experience as much like a live experience as possible.

Only in the past few months have gambling-industry insiders started to rethink how they present their online sites. Some have even suggested taking a few of the “bells and whistles” away because these extras might distract the online player from the task at hand. For some in the business, this will be a difficult concept to grasp, much less to accept. Casinos have always been well-lit, colorful, fascinating, and even a bit noisy – all by design. Now, a handful of people are suggesting taking this in a new direction.

Much of the argument for making online casino sites a bit more conservative comes from those who style themselves as “serious” players who don’t need the color, lights and bells that a recreational gamer might desire. A couple of industry watchers have suggested a serious survey/research study to determine just what it is players want in their online gambling. Are rich colors and full-motion video the most important details, as opposed to challenging and potentially lucrative games?

For years the belief has been that the atmosphere mentioned earlier – lights, bells, conversation buzzing around us – is what brings players back. If this is true, then online sites would need to recreate this, literally making the computer screen look and sound like the inside of a live gambling hall. There is little doubt that the world of Web-based casinos has grown rapidly, exploding into a major industry in a matter of years. All of this has happened without the familiar surroundings, sights and sounds of those big rooms.

So what is it that has drawn millions of people to the world of online gambling? Is it just the thrill of blackjack, craps, slots and poker? We certainly haven’t enjoyed the camaraderie of other gamblers or the efficient service of a cocktail waitress. Even without these amenities, gamblers seem to be gravitating toward online play. A British study shows that while gambling overall decreased a few percentage points from 1999 to 2007, the number of players online actually increased.

Are players showing a strong desire to play slots, roulette, blackjack and other games at home, without having to deal with the travel and expense of going to a live casino? Is the economic downturn we’re experiencing reaching into the world of live gambling?

In the past, Web-casino designers and managers have had little choice but to provide the same atmosphere as a player would get in a “brick-and-mortar” casino. These designers and managers will still have to provide almost-perfect software and game variety to keep players coming back. But will they have to concentrate so much on casino colors, lighting, graphics and sounds as they did in the past?

Some in the industry say no. As the legendary songwriter Bob Dylan said, “The times, they are a-changin.”

By: Jim Hale

Can you imagine a better job then being a casino consultant? For a person who is caught up in the ever growing fascination with gambling and related gaming then this type of job is as good if not better then being right there in the pit. The dealer deals and the cashier makes change but when you’re in the consulting business you have your hands in every aspect of a casino. Better yet, a casino consultant may have their hands in every aspect of many casinos.

When new laws pass or zoning changes to allow for a new gambling facility, a casino consultant is necessary to help make sense of everything. It’s their experience with all facets of the industry that can lay out all the needed information. This is information like what the demographics are and what they’ll mean to a new casino. The casino consultant will advise on what kind of games would work best in that casino given the competition or lack of competition in the area.

A good casino consultant firm will offer services on pretty much everything a casino could need. Accounting is primary but in the world of gambling this has a lot of offshoots. Unlike a regular industry there isn’t a product to be sold and regular costs and profit margins to be worked out. How much money will be taken in on a given day is important to know and then, more important, what percentage of that will the casino keep based on the given odds.

The casino consultant has to guide the casino, therefore, in considering how many of what games to offer in relation to how much profit it would give in return. Setting up a hundred blackjack tables, for example, results in an ongoing cost of labor. Will there be enough players to cover those tables? Based on the odds, how much will each of those tables bring in? This is no easy task. Every game that hits the floor takes up space that another game could have used. The casino consultant is needed to advise on what combination works best. After all, flooding the casino floor with nothing but slot machines sounds great on paper as these make more money then any other game and have relatively low operating costs. However, people won’t likely be drawn into a casino that only offers that one gaming option.

A gambling facility will also use the casino consultant to advise on placement of games. There is a definite strategy for where tables and slots are placed so as to draw the most revenue.

Equally important is the basic training. When an entrepreneur decides to build a new casino they aren’t likely to know all the basic ins and outs. The casino consultants would be hired to train not only that entrepreneur in the day to day operations, but to train others in how each game is to operate as well.

This is a side of the business that is rarely talked about or even considered. Basically, when the job is done well enough no one will even know your there. If a casino consultant does everything right then the casino will just, from a client’s point of view, work on its own.

By: Christopher Luck