Life in a Casino, by Torrie Harris

The try-outs, the uniforms, the make-up and the opportunity to make plenty of money working at the casino gave me an adrenaline rush. I was chosen to be a server out of the thousands of applicants who had applied. Constant entertainment, colorful lights, and the sounds of the slot machines paying off winnings brought excitement to my life.  With the table game players leaving $5- $500 table chips as tips, life couldn't get any better.  For the female waitresses, our title was known as cocktail servers, which meant we were making plenty of tips.  Even though tips were great, no one informed me of the other side of the life in a casino. 

 After being convinced to apply for a job as a cocktail server at Motor City Casino, located in Detroit, MI, I applied. Many people applied for this position and, with a slim chance of getting an interview, I was nervous.

 My gosh! I was called back to have an interview and found out there were other steps to the interview process before being hired. The first step was to go to a modeling agency to see if I was a cocktail server “fit.” I had to take photos and walk the runway in front of the interviewers and then wait to see if I had made it to the next step.

 I indeed got a call back for a verbal interview and successfully moved on to the final interviewing process. The final step to the search was to see if I had the look of a “Motor City cocktail server,” so I had to have make-up applied. Each of us had different styles of make-up on. After the make-up was applied, we were judged on the various looks. Not to brag, but they decided to go with my style of make-up, which consisted of red lipstick, black shadowy eyes, long lashes with glitter over the eyelid and a rhinestone glued to the side of one eye.

 Once the interview process was over, we moved to the uniforms. Of course, the goal for a Motor City cocktail server uniform is to fit the world of casinos. The uniform consisted of a glittery, multi-colored bustier, toddler-like underpants, skin-toned tights and black-tapping shoes. They did not allow tattoos or piercing on any part of the upper body.

The casino environment was 24 hours, seven days a week. No matter what time of the day, the atmosphere maintained a night-life environment. The lights staying dimmed, the sounds of the slot machine and the never-ending revolving doors became intriguing and drew many people to the atmosphere. During certain times of the day, an added feature of live entertainment helped to keep the environment alive. 

 The most interesting thing to see was the customers. There are two types of customers, the VIPs and the non-VIPs. The VIPs were considered the “rich” people who were able to put a minimum of $500 at stake. The casino provided a private area for the VIPs only. I saw many of them lose thousands of dollars and eventually lose everything; as we say, “from riches to rags.” It was sad to see. The non-VIPs were considered the “average” people. They could barely afford to gamble but they did. The non-VIP’s frame of mind was to either: 1) take some of their hard-earned money and try to double or maybe triple it; or 2) play again to win back their losses, but they still lost.

In the meantime, managers of the cocktail servers (the title for waitresses) had their hands full. The manager’s day-to-day frustration came from the cocktail servers either not being ready on time to serve or behaving inappropriately with customers. Most servers did not want to wait on the customers in the slot areas because most of them would not give a tip. As for the misconduct, there were a few servers who patronized the customers. In other words, they would do inappropriate things with the customers, which was totally against the rules. For example, the servers allowed customers to inappropriately touch them or give explicit favors for money… a tip.

My greatest experience was receiving tips. The casino opened in December 1999 and, during this time, the economy was great and the customers were very generous. On average, my tips by the end of a five-day work week were $1,000. Before I knew it, I was able to save and purchase my first home.

My worst experience was facing customers who were using inappropriate language and being harassed by the customers. From time to time, I had to deal with the disrespect of some customers talking to me in a sexual manner. A couple of times, I was touched inappropriately. The second time, I had to press charges against a customer who was already on probation.

After hearing the great reasons for working in a casino, it became very exciting and interesting. One great reason for cocktail servers was they could make a couple thousand dollars a week and even more in the VIP area. Well, no one said servers could make as little as 200 dollars a week when working in certain areas. Another great reason was career opportunity. We were told that we could advance in our career within the casino quite quickly. Again, no one said you had to become one of the “favorites” to advance.  Nevertheless, the casino has provided careers for many of their employees, but the constant cigarette smoke, the inappropriateness from customers, and the skimpy uniform was not my career path. I had to quit.