casino dealer

slot attendant

cuisinier à la chaîne

surveillant du service alimentaire

serveur

PURE Canadian Gaming

I will start by saying, this is representative of the Table Games Department at Casino Edmonton.  I have also structured this positives first, negatives after.

Positives

As is true with the casino industry in general the pay, for the work is pretty excellent.  You can expect to make 20+/hour, get a 15 minute break every hour and work as much as you like.  You trade your evenings and weekends for a pretty decent wage.  You also (as frontline staff) have income every 2 days in the form of a tip pool. Also everyone just got a raise that is above dealer, so the money is good.

The holiday flexibility is also pretty wonderful.  As of writing this review, the manager who approves vacations is guilty of taking one pretty much monthly.  As such he is very liberal with his approvals - I am pretty sure that the total time you take off annually isn't even tracked.

The coworkers are pretty excellent as well. While there is the inevitable cliques, people are generally very respectful and willing to talk (especially if you visit the smokeshack on break).  We have home poker games where people will go socialize, there is usually a weekly outing to a bar, or sometimes just a monthly movie outing  That being said, every place has their bad apples, just let them be and don't let them bring you down.

Negatives

As is true with customer service in general, you have your difficult customers - and the gaming industry is no different.  You are taking peoples money without giving them anything tangible (entertainment) in return so just come to work expecting to deal with miserable people for the majority of your day and enjoy the ones that are there and having fun.

Training is also very bad.  Between their games training, customer service training, etc I have had a different trainer every time, some of which had no idea how to teach a class or just didn't seem comfortable with the material.  

Once you get to the floor you will see people doing things differently, from how they deal the games to how discrepancies are handled.  You would think consistency would be important in a department that deals with thousands of dollars a day, but it doesn't seem like it is. You also never know how you are doing.  Don't expect feedback on anything you do, unless you overpay or something that is very black and white.

Your schedule will pretty much never be consistent, and sometimes come out with only 5-6 days ahead so don't expect to be able to plan anything beyond that.  We recently got audited by Labour Standards, and as a result, most people are on 8 hour shifts.  This was a godsend as it wasn't irregular for people to be scheduled 6 days a week, for 44 hours.  

Management is pretty friendly but ultimately laissez faire.  Beyond dealing with the issues that are over and above the pitbosses pay grades, or the counting of the trays, it is rare that you will see them get involved with the growth of the staff or customers.  They will harass you to work more shifts though. 

Dealing with HR is a horror story.  They are rarely accessible to the evening staff, and when you do get a request in, expect it to be ignored until you pester them a few more times. We are always short staffed but they seems more concerned about keeping the turnover rate down then making sure we have enough staff to open the tables we need sans OT.

Job Security is also pretty bad.  They seem to fire people every two years with little to no explanation. One of my friends was recently let go (with severance) for no reason - along with ~20 people between the two properties.  However, as long as management doesn't know who you are you should be safe.


Summary

If you are looking for a place where you don't have to work very hard, and want to make some really good money doing it, this is it.  Just expect crazy hours, and no guidance to how to be better at your job.  Time off requests are pretty flexible, and good luck if you need help from HR, or if you tick off the wrong manager.

Going into work and swiping yourself in, looking to where you were on the schedule and working what table game rotation given, listened to pre shift meetings, dealing to customers and when not dealing sorting cards/standing and inviting guests, every hour received a 15min break, and at end of night swiped out

Learned to deal cards and many table games along with learning about many peoples lives and cultures

Management would always follow up on all games being dealt and making sure proper procedure was followed along with counting of chips and cash exchanges for chips were watched closely

Co-workers are very friendly and you mostly worked alone unless on roulette or craps. It was like one big happy family and we planned many events outside of work with employees.

Hardest part of the job would be having to deal with angered/drunk guests and upset customers that lost lots of money

Most enjoyable part of the job was if I was in poker you are your own boss and the table you deal on is your entire control along with meeting new people and learning different cultures/backgrounds.

Could be the worst job I’ve ever had. There you are just a number as a employee. It’s a sweat shop.  They don’t care about you or your career and as soon as they no longer want you they will do whatever they can to get rid of you. Even going as far as moving one of their Games Managers to the head of the custodial department. The only thing more fake than their smiles are their promises. Managers are out of touch with entry level employees and I think it has to do with the staggeringly high turn over rate which leads to another problem, constant training. Their Casino Manager is a truly evil woman that always looks like she’s trying to find 101 dalmations to skin and make a coat. All this and it’s unionized with a union that cares less about the employees than the company does. 

I felt really bad for the people that moved their families across this vast country only to be laid off within weeks of starting. I would suggest exhausting all other options before looking at the Casino Calgary or any Casino controlled by Pure Canadian Gaming.

I worked here for over 2 years. Every time I had a problem and went to management about it. They'd tell me they'll deal with it, but nothing is ever done about it. They care more about themselves than their employees. There was a VIP guest who came in and harassed their employee because things weren't going his way. This happens quite often. But when we went to management about it, nothing was ever done about it. You also have to constantly fight to keep your job. If you don't kiss up to management they either start targeting you to try and get you fired or they cut your hours to bare minimum. Those who kisses up to them gets away with everything; being lazy, hiding in the office, losing hundreds of dollars. Those who don't? They get written up for losing $5, picked on by management, things from the past that was forgiven is suddenly brought up, etc. I've never worked for a business that operates the way Pure does. Where management pretends to care, but only does things that works in their favour. One who gets influenced by mere employees who are playing with them.

typical day at work means that you bust your butt to get paid a low wage or worse. they don't care about your family life, or your children when they are ill all they care about is how hard you work for them. they also say they give out incentives for not calling in for 6 months, and little things like that but if you suck up to the right people you can call in six times in a month and not get in trouble or even be recorded that you missed a shift, 
terrible management, had our boss leave and they made the supervisors do his jobs, and still paid them the same wages and expected them to be able to get everything done ontop of the stuff they were delegated to do and probably not qualified to do it...
they also would roll your hours back if you were scheduled for 
5pm-2:15am and you had to stay till 2:30am because of business needs, they would roll your hours back to 2:15am.

Working for Pure was my favourite place to be. I was welcomed with open arms by most every staff member. I was rewarded for doing my job well. If I had a problem it was heard. We had yearly engagement meeting and daily pre shifts to make sure everyone was on the same page. The poker community made it special though. Being given the opportunity to deal high stakes poker and surround myself with such diverse people from every age, race, religion, financial differences, loan sharks to real estate agents to doctors. I will never forget how special it was. My only regret is moving on

management is deeply confused and disorganized. they will make your job miserable with questionable hiring and poor guest management. sometimes, you’ll get lucky with one or two decent members of management, but their work is quickly overpowered by belittling, demeaning, over controlling higher management who literally have not actually served a day in their lives. further highlighted by their lack of understanding of industry standards. i promise there is better(most other restaurants) management elsewhere. as long as you’re decent at your job you will enjoy most of the other floor staff. lots of lovely people!

I was employed for many years and appreciated my job for much of the time. It became to corporate, more about what stock holders were making and much less about customer service and the employee( the person who kept patrons coming in). Many benefits of working here were slashed over the years, such as benefits, staffing, flexibility and staff functions. All with little to no communication. I will say the fast paced was nice and I appreciated my coworkers and many customers.

I got in after a second attempt and was actually assigned at a different location.  In that location,  the person who was supposed to be training me seems to be really good at what he is supposed to do.  BUT he simply does not teach you enough for some reasons,  and does not seem to be interested in teaching you the important things you need to know about the job, specially the pen pushing matters/paper works.  It came to a point when I was supposed to manage a shift by myself and I was simply not ready -  I just quit after a few days.

Fun atmosphere! Poor work environment. F/T training shifts each week (day, eve, grave) then you work P/T. Managers are not held accountable for their actions (yelling at an employee from another department, in front of customers, without introducing themselves first) and (young) co-workers will throw you under the bus as a result. Supervisors are miserable. Given 30 mins break, but only use 10-20 mins of it. The word subordination is overused when seeking clarification, or defending yourself. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Casino dealer 4 salaries reported	$16.12 per hour
Slot attendant 3 salaries reported	$15.33 per hour
Cuisinier à la chaîne 2 salaries reported	$17.50 per hour
Surveillant du service alimentaire 1 salary reported	$18.00 per hour
Serveur 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour

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