Big Deal Casino Academy, a dealer-training school on the sixth floor of a NoMad office building, has been scaling up as New York City adds live table games and prepares for two more full casinos. The school, founded by Wendy Rubin in 2014, says prospective students now regularly call to ask how to qualify for dealer work.
The expansion follows Resorts World New York City’s April launch of live table games, the first such operation in the city. The Queens casino opened 242 tables and 2,507 commercial slots, according to the company, after the state’s licensing changes allowed its former video-lottery-terminal facility to offer table games.
Gothamist reported that Rubin had anticipated a need for more dealers long before casinos arrived, saying she “saw the writing on the wall.” It took more than a decade after the academy opened for New York City casinos to arrive. Big Deal is licensed by the Department of Education and is described as the boroughs’ only licensed dealer school.
The academy’s certification course takes about nine weeks and costs $2,780. Students must learn blackjack and one additional table game to become certified and employable; a recent class practised baccarat. A high school diploma is not required, although people convicted of certain felonies, including fraud, perjury and embezzlement, cannot qualify. Financial instability arising from unpaid child support or taxes can also bar certification.
Tony Hall, a Resorts World dealer manager who teaches at Big Deal, described casino dealing as “a hotter job” as employment expanded. He said friends and relatives had asked how to enter the profession after seeing that it offered good pay without strenuous physical labour. Resorts World was seeking craps dealers at the time of the report.
The new jobs have been substantial. Resorts World said its April launch created 1,250 positions, including 950 table-games dealer roles, while more than 1,300 table-games dealers joined the property after the spring opening, according to the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council. The union said the dealers later received more than $1.3 million in backpay related to incorrect training-period pay.
Big Deal is not the only route into the sector. Casinos provide in-house training, creating competition with the academy for both students and instructors. Those internal programmes are overseen by the Gaming Commission, while Big Deal falls under Department of Education licensing. Resorts World’s Dealer School had trained and hired more than 400 local Queens residents and expected another 500 graduates by May.
The union also offers a free nine-week dealer-training course, held for 20 hours a week and covering blackjack, roulette and baccarat. It said the three licensed city projects, Resorts World, Metropolitan Park near Citi Field and Bally’s at Ferry Point in the Bronx, could create as many as 14,000 permanent union jobs.
Metropolitan Park, to be operated by Hard Rock, and Bally’s Bronx casino are projected to open in 2030.
