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Health pay tops, Dealers lowest, NV study says
By Jeff Burbank/Las Vegas Business Press/March 13,2000
Doctors and others in health-related fields are among the
highest-paid people on average in the greater Las Vegas area,
while casino dealers are the lowest paid, at least when it comes
to reported hourly wages, according to a state study of wages for
calendar year 1999.
The mean, or average, hourly pay for physicians and surgeons based
in Las Vegas in 1999 was $59.25 an hour, while dentists made
$55.97 per hour and other health practitioners involved in
diagnoses and treatment received $44.76. Lawyers were next with an
average of $41.62 an hour.
Mike Clarke, economist for the state Department of Employment,
Training and Rehabilitation's bureau of research and development
that conducted the survey, said the high salaries for health
professionals in Southern Nevada is in keeping with a national
trend. The high pay reflects the years it takes in college and
residency to become a doctor or dentist, he said.
"The higher wage jobs are related to education and training
requirements, and health requires a lot of training and
education," Clarke said. "There is a direct connection
to education and earnings. These top earners are pretty much
(tops) across the nation."
The jobs that pay the least in Southern Nevada, in terms of
average hourly wages, are blackjack dealers ($5.94), poker dealers
($6.12) and craps dealers ($6.39), the study found. Those figures,
however, are misleading because dealers make far more money on
tips, which are considered separate earnings and are not included
in the wage survey, Clarke said.
But Tony Badillo, president of the 6,000-member Nevada Casino
Dealers Association who worked as a casino dealers at the old
Sands Hotel for 42 years, said that people tend to exaggerate how
much casino dealers make in tips. Although some at a few top
casinos make as much as $200 a night on tips alone, very few of
the 60,000 dealers in Nevada make more than $40,000 per year,
including wages and tips, he said.
"In the downtown (Las Vegas) casinos, they can make only $20
a night in tips," Badillo said. "At many casinos, the 21
dealers have to pool their tips with the other blackjack tables,
plus the relief shifts and the dealers of roulette and the side
games, like pai gow and Caribbean Stud. The more games you have,
the few tokes (tips) you get. Craps dealers make more in
tips because usually they only have to split with fewer
dealers."
Casino dealers also make far less per hour than cocktail
waitresses and bartenders, who, unlike dealers, are member of
labor unions, said Badillo, who has been trying for years to
create a union for dealers.
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