More jobs losses possible at US casinos

Casinos in Nevada, Louisiana and Mississippi have announced up to 3,000 permanent layoffs due to the pandemic.

US.- The Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause job losses at casinos in the US. Casinos in Nevada, Louisiana and Mississippi have announced nearly 3,000 casino workers could be laid off in the following months.

The majority of the latest warnings come at properties owned by Penn National Gaming. Penn National’s M Resort and Tropicana Casino, its two properties in Nevada, have already delivered notices to workers of possible redundancies effective August 15.

Independently owned casinos on the Las Vegas Strip have also announced possible lay offs, with 414 possible redundancies at Treasure Island and an undisclosed number at Sahara Las Vegas from September 18.

Meanwhile, casinos on the Mississippi coast have announced the lay off of 1,219 employees who were previously furloughed, and casinos in Louisiana have announced another 1,375 layoffs, bringing the total number of job losses at casinos in the state since the start of the pandemic close to 3,000.

Jobs could go at Boomtown New Orleans, Margaritaville Resort Casino in Bossier City, and L’Auberge Casino locations in Baton Rouge and Lake Charles – all owned by Penn National Gaming – and Cypress Bayou Casino Hotel in St. Mary Parish, owned by the Chitmacha tribe.

Penn National Gaming stated in its WARN filing, which employers must file 60 days before making layoffs or closing: “These layoffs at Penn National Gaming are the unfortunate result of COVID-19 related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond our control.

“The impact on our business was not reasonably foreseeable until now. We simply could not foresee, that the initial closures of our properties, that were issued by one or two states for a limited period of time, ultimately spread throughout all the states in which we operate and eventually be extended, interrupting almost all business and travel temporarily.

“These significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Finally, we could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes.”