(The story has been updated to clarify the number of students who attended Harrah's recent recruiting event in the eighth paragraph.)
In the past few years, casinos have begun betting on hiring MBAs to improve their businesses, enhance marketing, refinance debt, oversee human resources, and manage gaming and all the extras, from fine dining to luxurious hotels. "The employers are just waking up to the education of business students," says Chris Roberts, director of the School of Hospitality Leadership at DePaul University. Now schools, and students, are waking up, too.
Although University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) remains the leader in educating managers for the casino industry, other business schools are beginning to offer courses, clubs, and job treks aimed at helping students develop careers in casinos. For instance, Roberts, who helped develop a casino management concentration at the University of Massachusetts in the 1990s, recently launched at DePaul an undergraduate casino management course in which 23 business students participated. Plans are under way to do the same for graduate students, including MBAs, in 2011. Some business schools are teaming up with their school's hospitality programs, while others are going it alone.
What all the business schools have in common is a drive to provide aspiring MBAs with new career opportunities. "The biggest motivator is that the financial area jobs have dried up," says Harry Chernoff, a professor at the New York University Stern School of Business (Stern Full-Time MBA Profile), where he teaches a course called Operations in Entertainment: Las Vegas. Says Chernoff: "Our students have been broadening their horizons."
Changes in the casino industry have opened doors for MBA hires. In the 1950s, casino managers were king, and their personalities drove the business, says Roberts. By the 1980s, corporations began to take over casinos, and Las Vegas wasn't the only venue anymore. Still, most casino managers, says Roberts, began as dealers in the casino. A college degree wasn't even a requirement, let alone an MBA.
But more competition is motivating casinos to hire people with special business skills, and opportunities abound. During the past two decades, according to the American Gaming Assn., the casino work force has increased almost 80 percent, from 198,657 employees in 1990 to 357,314 in 2008. Additional states that have voted to allow gaming have also contributed to an increase in jobs.
Although the gaming industry faces challenges because of the economic crisis, insiders remain optimistic that it is bouncing back, says Pearl Brewer, professor and director of graduate studies at the UNLV William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration. In the past year, the number of graduate students enrolled in gaming courses at UNLV has tripled, says Brewer. She adds that many more people who are already in gaming are returning for MBA and MS degrees in the hopes that they can advance in the industry.
"I look at each casino as a mini city," says Dan Wyse, marketing analysis manager at Harrah's Entertainment (HET) in Las Vegas and a 2007 MBA graduate of Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business (Tepper Full-Time MBA Profile). Casinos nowadays are usually part of big hotels that feature restaurants, shows, retail shops, giveaways, and other tourist attractions, all of which require good management and a solid business strategy, adds Wyse.
Harrah's has been taking the lead in recruiting MBAs. For many years, the company has offered the President's Associate program, a management rotational program for MBAs. But interest in gaming among MBAs is just starting to take off. The most recent Harrah's recruiting event at Stern attracted more than 100 students, a big increase over the last time it was held, says Chernoff. Although few students ended up pursuing actual casino jobs, it's an indication of the growing interest among business students in casino management.
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