From Las Vegas and Atlantic City to Saipan

Former and current casino workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey and Las Vegas, Nevada may have already Googled about Saipan where their services are needed for a new casino that advertises a starting salary of $40,000 for experienced dealers and anywhere between $45,000 and $115,000 for experienced supervisors and managers.

Best Sunshine International Ltd.’s Saipan facility is supposed to be a temporary or live training casino on the ground floor of an existing duty-free shop, until it completes construction of its own casino resorts for a promised $7-billion price tag.

The advertised job perks are nice, only if these Las Vegas or Atlantic City casino personnel are willing to travel thousands of miles to this tiny U.S. tropical island in the Western Pacific.

Some of the stories and the online job advertisements, however, wrongfully placed Saipan in the South Pacific (is that near or part of Hawaii, as the uninitiated ask themselves and scratch their head looking at a map) and others, in Asia.

For any experienced casino worker in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, the Saipan benefits advertised include free air transportation, health insurance, free housing and free meal on every work shift, along with “gaining international experience,” “seeking a challenge and adventure,” and “being part of a casino opening.”

A signing bonus is also offered to any experienced casino worker willing to relocate to Saipan by July 10, 2015.

“We are looking for individuals that can start quickly to move to Saipan,” the online ad says, as it announced job interviews in Las Vegas from June 30 to July 2 (prior to that, there was also a job fair in Atlantic City) for table game shift/pit managers, surveillance shift managers, cage shift managers, table game supervisors, casino table dealers, gaming auditor, casino accountant, surveillance officers, and cage cashier.

But as recently as last week, exclusive Saipan casino license holder Best Sunshine said the opening date for the temporary casino facility is a “moving target.”

The temporary Saipan casino facility was supposed to open in June, and then in July, but now an August opening is more like it. Until early this year, there wasn’t even a mention of a temporary or live training casino.

The recruitment in these two U.S. casino cities shouldn’t come as a surprise to the CNMI, which repeatedly heard politicians touting about new employment opportunities for local residents before, during and after legalization of casino operation on Saipan.

Best Sunshine chief executive officer Mark A. Brown told CNMI reporters that local residents applying for jobs with the company prefer to land hotel employment—and not casino jobs such as dealers.

“Right this moment, majority [of the applicants] are not dealers. I want more dealers,” Brown was quoted as saying, adding that Best Sunshine will be paying trainees to deal at $7.25 per hour.

The minimum wage in the CNMI is currently at $6.05 an hour, and is mandated to increase until it reaches the federal wage floor of $7.25 an hour.

Best Sunshine has repeatedly said it will prioritize local hires as it eyes 500 personnel but its own statement about the lack of interest in casino jobs among local applicants only partly justifies its recruitment from Las Vegas, Atlantic City or other places outside the CNMI.

Even from the start, Best Sunshine knew the CNMI does not have a readily available pool of workers to fill up the casino positions needed so it will have to recruit from other places with long established casino industries such as those in Asia’s Singapore, Macau, or the Philippines.

The CNMI government, which was in a rush to legalize casino on Saipan, could have done more to ensure meaningful employment for more island residents by requiring casino applicants to start training island residents for casino jobs as soon as the exclusive license is granted (last year)—and not barely a few weeks before the opening of a casino, whether temporary or permanent.

It certainly takes time for trainees from the CNMI that are paid $7.25 an hour to be offered the same starting salary of $40,000 a year for experienced casino workers and up to $115,000 for experienced managers and supervisors recruited from Las Vegas or Atlantic City, where many lost their jobs when casinos closed last year.

Based on the job ad in Las Vegas, what’s needed are casino dealers with a “minimum of two years” baccarat experience. So that could be the length of time needed before CNMI trainees start also getting paid $40,000 a year for dealing. Or would they ever be paid as much?

It also remains to be seen whether Best Sunshine will provide the same salary range of $40,000 to $115,000 to experienced casino personnel already in the CNMI, particularly those that spent years working at Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino. After all, Tinian Dynasty personnel are not paid that much and are not paid on time every now and then.