casino dealer

host/hostess

line cook

security officer

cage cashier

Rivers Casino

Rivers Casino is the best casino in Pittsburgh.  The perfect location, by Heinz Field, PNC Park and Stage AE brings a lot of out of towners in, especially the locals.  Like any other casino though, kiss your holidays and guarenteed days off goodbye.  The casino tries to show their employees in various ways they care about them with bonuses, some free lunch days, free tickets to Kennywood, free turkey or ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas, etc...  
The Rivers have a very high turn over rate in all areas which brings change (some good and some bad).  Most importantly, opportunities to move ahead or at times they will just hire externally if they feel the candidates on property are inadequate for the job.  
The staff are really friendly and talented people that will be a pleasure to work with.  In every job though, a few of their employees here have poor work ethics, really lack any sense of game knowledge and have a horrible demeanor about them that makes you wonder how do they still have a job.  
Rivers Table Games Management Team is incomparable.  This is the first casino where I had more years invested in the company then any one on the management team (even they had a high turn over rate). This brought about many inconsistencies with the policy and procedures within the department.  The managers did, however, have an open door policy if at any time you had a problem they would allow you the opportunity to come to them. The Human Resource Department also would not mind anyone voicing their concerns big or small during office hours. The department had many meetings making for longer work days or coming in on your days off but they were paid.  
The most enjoyable part of the job is entertaining the guests which in turn would make you more tips.  They offered free classes to learn more table games, earn a raise and opportunity to become qualified for a promotion.  Allowed the employees to dress down during various sporting events, holidays, and promotions.  Showed employee recognition with the Employee of the Month program.  Provided an online rewards program to employees to receive free merchandise.  Also, offered different discounts with certain companies.   All in all, a good company to work for if you are willing to work!

Rivers Casino is an exciting environment to work in. I had the privilege of working within Food and Beverage overseeing six unique outlets ranging from a signature lounge, an expansive buffet, a 50's era diner, a one-stop coffee shop, an asian themed noodle bar, and a retail outlet.

I monitor the operations of the department both front and back of house. I strengthen budgetary guidelines in an effort to minimize costs in labor and product. I track cash handling variances, procedural audit discrepancies, and team members' attendance and payroll. I am responsible for interviewing, hiring, training, scheduling, developing, and coaching over 90 team members in multiple positions at the line level. I am also responsible for training and coaching department leaders.

I have written and contributed to training manuals for multiple positions. I have refreshed a training program and assigned a trainer within each position. I have created many working documents for use within the department including tracking server sections in the outlets, formatting schedules for supervisors, determining team member seniority, and cataloguing team member performance; this has been especially useful when writing evaluations. I have also created and implemented shift bids for multiple schedules.

My shifts are typically 10-12 hours in keeping with the industry standard. I work multiple shifts at multiple times throughout the day including nights, weekends, and holidays.

The most challenging part of my job is finding a balance between meeting service expectations; recovering and determining restitution for service breakdowns; and maintaining a positive financial awareness.

The most enjoyable part of my job is building relationships with guests and developing relationships with team members. The fact that I can do that in an exciting, dynamic, high volume environment is invigorating and fun.

I enjoy the job, the people the company. There no appearant logic to the qualifications of why they choose people in leadership positions. People who know the casino, their computer system, have an excellent relationship with the guests and have the professional qualifications are overlooked and outside people brought in. This is because the hiring management is either reactive or lazy (im guessing due to their newness both), Rather than training and developing their loyal team members they hire outside talent to plug a hole They've lost more than a few loyal employees because of their inability to develop Its sink or swim for a good deal of departments with minimum training and education on their systems then 'figure it out or find out from your other co-workers who taught themselves too', huge fail there. Not to restate this but seriously not a huge fan of the way they train and develop people. In addition, there's no succession plan in place for any of the staff who would like to advance. Poor communication from management to qualified team members when those positions become available so the staff can interview. Ultimately you end up stuck in your role or doing lateral promotions (new department no real advancement). Its a great place to work if you dont want a career that can support your home or family otherwise. I find multi departmental management apathetic toward their staff, distracted from educating and training staff, unfocused doing things on the computer like surfing or shopping even gambling rather than engaging and developing or just plain stressed. It shouldnt be this way.

During my time working at Rivers Casino I experienced a roller coaster of emotions. The place really is a decent place to work but there a few things that I feel I was intentionally mislead on. Co workers seemed young and for the most part apathetic about the job, as well as policies and customers alike. Policies seemed to be enforced "at will", or only to employees who were not "favorites" of the managers. Management on several occasions encouraged me to apply for a position in order to advance and basically came out and said " if You apply for it, its yours", only to have a different story or situation after I actually applied for the promotion. HR is TERRIBLE. I became sick and had to take a leave of absence during my employment, when trying tocontact HR within the alotted 3 day period in order to get my attendance taken care for the days that I was forced to miss without punishment, I ran into several obstacles. It took me 3 days and several ( approximately 7 ) voicemails asking for them to call me back so that I could arrange to pick up the necessary paperwork. When they finally did contact me back they spoke to me with total disrespect and acted as if I was a bother to them. Also I was told I could take my long sleeve issued uniform shirts to wardrobe and have them altered to short sleeves to accommodate the hot weather of summer. When I did this I was told that it would be a 3 month wait to get 3 shirts altered. There are GREAT employees at this place, unfortunately those employees are overworked and exhausted due to picking up the slack of the other apathetic team members, and it adversely affects there job performance.

I have worked there for over two years now and I developed a routine for my job. I always come in earlier than the servers so I can review the BEO which entails all the information for the event. I look at the the floor plan and make sure the room matches to the clients needs. I check the buffets (if there is one for that event) and make sure all materials and food labels are there and correct. I assign servers tables and set examples so they know how to set the tables for that event. I also give them side work which can be a variety of things;such as, organizing, prepping for future events, and cleaning BOH area. I make sure that the room is set on time for the event and that we have reached the clients needs for the entire event. I also keep an eye on the servers to make sure they are doing side work or serving their assigned tables. I also have to make sure I communicate with other departments; such as, IT and beverage to meet event specifications. I have enjoyed my job greatly and leaned a lot about leadership, time management, problem solving, and so much more since taking this position. I have enjoyed my experience greatly and could not have asked to work with better people that make my job worth while aside from making client events memorable. The hardest part of the job was learning how to lead with a brand new facility opening. I came into the casino with a brand new opening of the banquet department and learning to be the captain and know what our bosses wanted in running this new department and developing a routine and standard way of working was difficult. We are over two years in running and it is time to move on in my career to better opportunities.

I was a banquet server and while it was not the best job ever, I did have a lot of fun and made great money while I was there. Shifts could be long and there was never a way to confidently know when you would get to go home for the night. However, with banquets you never had to work over night and often times didn't work major holidays. There were slow periods where you had no events. You could pick up work in other departments, there was always someone that wanted to give up a shift. The work wasn't particularly hard, but was very physical. It was half a mile from the docks to the banquet room, trays could be incredibly heavy, weddings were fast paced, and our largest event space was a concrete floor so by the end of the night your body would be seriously aching. There are days you are absolutely obligated to work called River Days. Each department has their own set of River Days. Banquets had a couple unique benefits to it such as being allowed to eat extra food at the end of the night and we had a lot of downtime during shifts due to event structures. I was able to see quite a few free concerts and comedians, even got to meet a few. But the Rivers has changed over the years and while they've always been demanding of your time over the last couple years they've made it harder to get time off work. You need PTO to request any time off. And even then time off is based on seniority. 

The initial paid training makes your days very long if you're currently working. The first few weeks are really awkward, but then it becomes really fun. Base pay starts at under $5/hr; tips usually average about $18-$20/hr. You can keep taking more classes to deal more games, and once you've completed them all you can become a supervisor. Management is hit or miss; some supervisors and managers are awesome people while others you try to avoid if possible. The job comes with really nice PTO, but good luck getting all the days you need. They're known for scheduling people 1 or 2 days during their vacations because they don't have enough people (on purpose), so you have to use your call offs. PTO is so cutthroat that you need to ask for it as soon as it's possible (I think it's something like 90 days without a plane ticket bought, 6 months with a plane ticket bought). The only other thing that sucks is that it can be a full year before you get full-time status and benefits. Luckily I got mine in 6 months, but that was only because there were openings from some people becoming supervisors and others moving to other casinos. You do get a free meal in the cafeteria every shift and the food isn't bad. Oh, and if you get stuck on a game with no players for a long time it's really, really boring and difficult to stay awake. Good thing you get a break once every 60-80 minutes.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Fun, respectful and engaging work environment.  Every team member in every role matters and people fell that.  We all feel a part of something special.  The magic starts with our outstanding leadership that is committed to embracing the diversity of the employees while ensuring that everything is done with integrity and respect while having a fun.   

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
As a casino, the type of the business and the volume of buiness/people mean more potential of issues to be resolved.  In a casino, there is always extremes of customer's energy/
emotions for a frontline team member to deal with. But we have excellent support and training in handling the external and internal stress that one deals with when it arises.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Of my 40 years plus in various corporate and non corporate jobs/careers,  Rivers is tops in creating the culture that people looks forward coming to work where people strives everyday making a difference.  Everone feels respected and valued and that is how we treat one another. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Varied, multi tasking from administrative tasks of planning and daily processes to working with team member on setup and when there is an event,  working with our service staff and ensuring our guests are served and cared for.

- Job duties altered depending on the day. For instance, 3-4 days a week I was assigned to the Security Control Center. This is where I monitored live security video feed, communicated with surveillance, wrote extensive reports, monitored internal and external persons, answered phone calls, logged everyday activity and ran the 3 security systems on the computer. - When not stationed at the Control Center, I assisted in very large cash transactions with tedious procedures and under constant surveillance. As well as escorts, observing guests for suspicious activity, and much more.

- I've learned that situations can change within seconds and to always be observant of the surroundings. 

- Management was usually a working progress. It was a brand new Casino and had a lot of kinks to work out. Overall, I believe we communicated fairly well.

- Co-workers came and left often. The Casino work life is most definitely not for everyone. We all tried very hard to work together.

- Undoubtedly, the hardest part of this job was finding children and pets in vehicles on hot days and keeping composure while dealing with these individuals.

- The most enjoyable part was witnessing guests that were truly happy to win X amount of money and shared their happiness with everyone around them.

My experience at Rivers Casino highlighted significant issues with management communication, scheduling consistency, and how attendance policies are enforced.

Even minor delays caused by public transportation—sometimes only a few minutes—were treated strictly without flexibility or consideration for circumstances outside of employee control. This created unnecessary stress despite employees making efforts to be on time and plan accordingly.

While the work itself can be fast-paced and demanding, there is a complete lack of understanding from management regarding real-world commuting challenges and employee effort. In my experience, concerns were often handled in a rigid “policy over context” manner.

The compensation did not feel proportional to the level of pressure and expectations placed on staff.

I worked hard and took my responsibilities seriously, but ultimately the environment did not reflect appreciation for employee effort or circumstances. For those who are considering applying for this Casino: Don’t. 

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