As Elk Grove’s Sky River Casino hires, hopefuls are betting on gaming jobs closer to home
Mai Vang drove to Placer County from Stockton, roughly the same commute she used to take to work as a dealer at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln. Josh Tomlin drove up Interstate 80 from Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood. He deals cards in Shingle Springs.
Sheldon Benham-Callender drives every day from Sacramento to tiny Brooks in Yolo County’s Capay Valley to deal hands of poker and blackjack.
The three were among the hundreds of gaming industry job seekers from across the Sacramento region who filled the Sky River Casino job fair in Rocklin this week hoping to work at the Elk Grove casino now under construction. Job seekers here appeared to be driven by new opportunities as well as record-breaking prices at the pump and the promise of a shorter commute.
“It’s a minute,” Benham-Callender said of the drive to Cache Creek Casino Resort in Yolo County from his north Sacramento home as he waited with dozens of others for his turn at a live audition for card dealers at the Monday job fair. “It’s a push.”
Doors at the $500 million Sky River resort 15 minutes south of Sacramento won’t open until November, developers say, but the casino is hiring now with a second event planned May 23 at Elk Grove’s District 56 complex. More events are anticipated into the summer months as Sky River moves closer to opening day, casino officials said.
Sky River is hiring for some 2,000 positions across the establishment, from culinary to beverage to drivers and surveillance.
Alicia Flores hoped to be among them Monday, waiting to be interviewed for a security or surveillance position. Her Sacramento-area home is a 10-minute drive from the casino.
“That’s why I’m crossing my fingers, especially with gas prices,” Flores said. “But I’ve come with a positive attitude.”
In the Sacramento-area’s far-flung tribal gaming landscape, the newest entrant is betting on its next-door neighbor proximity to the Capital city not only to lure customers to its tables, slots, shows and restaurants but also the hundreds of workers it will need to staff them all.
And on Monday applicants like Vang weren’t waiting for a later job fair or a hiring event closer to home, instead driving miles for the opportunity to land a job ahead of the competition.
“It would be a big difference in the drive” to Elk Grove from her home in Stockton, she said.
“We thought we’d get a mix of people, but a lot have driven up. There’s a really nice buzz,” said Sky River vice president Chris Gibase.
For Tomlin, the table games dealer from Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood, Sky River had long been on his radar.
“I had heard about it about a year ago and thought it must be a rumor,” Tomlin said. “Then I saw this big building (under construction) and said, ‘Oh, it’s real.’ I’ve been looking at their website for weeks waiting for a job to open.”
Sky River is also tapping into what some labor economists are calling the “great reshuffling,” as a tight labor market amid California’s rapid economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is encouraging job seekers to shop for and potentially land higher paying jobs in their field.
The Public Policy Institute of California in April laid out some of the elements at play during this reshuffling wave: Rising demand for workers is running up against historically high numbers of workers who are calling it quits.
As the state’s economic recovery from the pandemic continues, more people are stepping off the sidelines and reentering the workforce coaxed by rising wages in the area where the gaming sector squarely sits: leisure and hospitality.
Wages in the leisure and hospitality sector have increased 18% compared to February 2020, according to the PPIC.
Although Sky River is entering a wildly competitive Sacramento gaming market, marketing vice president Carrie Gordon said the market provides a hiring advantage — an experienced talent pool steeped in the industry and ready to start work.
“There’s talent coming in across departments,” Gordon said. “It’s nice to know that the gaming environment in Northern California is still open to change. The talent pool is excited about the potential.”
Sky River recruiters were off to a brisk start on Monday.
“We’ve had 24 tables doing 15-minute interviews the last four hours — several hundred interviewed and several hundred more in the queue,” Sky River vice president of marketing Carrie Gordon said Monday afternoon. “We don’t know what the rest of the day will bring, but it’s been a successful event.”
Rows of more candidates were taking in a video orientation. Drone footage showed how the casino construction is progressing. Workers had poured acres of fresh blacktop for parking around the 64-acre site, with much of the facade of the sand-hued multistory structure rising above Highway 99 complete.
In an earlier interview, Gibase said work on the resort’s kitchens and its 110,000 square-foot gaming floor were also moving apace. Plans include up to 2,000 slot machines and more than 80 table games on the gaming floor.
On-site drug testing, gaming commissioners to review identification and credentials, and even card tables for live dealers’ auditions made the fair a one-stop shop for job candidates.
“We wanted to make this an on-site hiring event,” Gibase said.
A number of candidates had received job offers while others were being called back for second interviews promising job offers later in the week.
“They have an offer of employment,” Gordon said. “We’ve gone through their background and they’re given everything they need to be an employee of Sky River.”
This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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