In the world of gaming, there always seems to be this difficult relationship with the casino and its regulator. This is true for both private casinos and those that are Native American owned. Casinos need to hire reliable individuals (ideally those who have passed employee background checks) to keep their business generating revenue, and the gaming commission’s job is to make sure those people are legally licensed to work in their respective facilities. Sometimes, the casinos refer in jest to the gaming commission as “cops,” and the gaming commission can refer to the casino as “cowboys.” Aside from that friendly banter though, this is truly a symbiotic relationship. Both parties need each other, and the fact remains that if the gaming commissions overregulated the casinos, the gaming commissions wouldn’t be around themselves.
The Importance of Employee Background Checks & Monitoring
I had a chance to talk with casino employees and casino managers about how the gaming licensing process affects their lives. I also spoke with gaming commissions on how they view their role with respect to regulating. My firm works with a great deal of casino clients that span private industry operators to Native American owned enterprises. One of the major issues that kept coming up was the problem of casino employees not reporting to the gaming commission when they get arrested. This seems to be a recurring problem, but there are many different angles to the issue.
The first perspective that I encountered was from the applicant. Those that I talked to mentioned they knew they should report an arrest but it wasn’t very clear to them what a disqualifying offense was or not. The reality of the situation is that most of these offenses are not ones that would have their gaming license taken away, but the applicant doesn’t know that so they simply don’t report it, and then run the risk of having it exposed by the gaming commission. And if the gaming commission does an audit and finds an arrest record, that licensee can be terminated. If the applicant came clean and explained the circumstances and situation surrounding the event, he or she could have remained employed.
