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Jan Jones Blackhurst Executive Vice President of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Caesars Entertainment and the first female mayor of Las Vegas Sources: Women in the Workplace 2016 (LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company) and “Glass Ceiling & Leaking Pipelines: Gender Disparity in the Casino Industry” (Repetti & Hoffman, UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal, 2018)
On one hand, the gaming industry appears to be doing a better job at growing its pipeline than U.S. businesses overall, with 47 percent of management positions held by women. Unfortunately, despite this seemingly increased opportunity, the gender gap widens back to national averages at more senior levels, and is in fact slightly worse at the vice president level. Authors Toni Repetti and Shekinah Hoffman looked not only at the “glass ceiling” in gaming, or vertical occupational segregation, but also horizontal occupational segregation: the percentage of women represented in each department. Here, they learned that women lead in departments such as human resources, public relations, and sales and events, but lag in casino operations management. The casino category, which includes all gaming departments such as table games, slots, bingo, keno, and race and sports book, had the sixth lowest percentage of females (22.8 percent) out of 20 departments analyzed, despite having the most employees in the dataset. Even within female-dominated departments, Repetti and Hoffman found a lack of women in higher leadership positions. Hoffman’s dissertation builds on this research by attempting to understand the reason behind these numbers. Thus far, the graduate student has interviewed more than 40 women in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. Existing literature about the broader hospitality and tourism industries indicates that the 24/7 business model, demanding employees to work long, unsocial hours and requiring frequent geographical moves, creates a particular challenge for mothers trying to satisfy both work and family needs. Further, women in gaming may face unique challenges of their own due to the industry’s idiosyncratic demands, like its labor-intensive structure and high turnover rate. Hoffman’s research also revealed challenges like tokenism, microaggressions and the need to downplay femininity or “toughen up” to fit in and excel. Says Hoffman, “My goal is to understand the stories and experiences of women in gaming. From work-life balance and sexual harassment to their perceived barriers to advancement, what is driving the gender leadership gap in gaming, and how can the industry better address it?”
The Movement in Gaming
Virginia McDowell Former President and CEO of Isle of Capri Casinos
Hoffman’s work strives to answer many questions that the small number of female leaders in gaming have been considering for decades. While we can pinpoint its foundation to that dinner eight years ago, the creation of GGW was really a culmination of years of work and dialogue steadfastly advanced by women across the industry, and a few key leaders who were particularly outspoken on the issue: Virginia McDowell, former president and CEO of Isle of Capri Casinos; Jan Jones Blackhurst, executive vice president of public policy and corporate responsibility at Caesars EntertainPatricia Becker ment and the first female mayor of Las Veteran Industry Executive Vegas; then CEO of International Game and Regulator Technology Patti Hart; and veteran industry executive and regulator Patricia Becker. In fact, it was the success of Becker’s first “Kick Up Your Heels” fundraiser (for the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was executive director at the time) that led to the 2011 dinner and the development of GGW. Initially organized by the American Gaming Association, GGW launched in 2012 with intentionally broad objectives: to create a development program that would enable women in the industry to learn from each other and share ideas. More specifically, members of its first steering committee—including Becker, Hart and McDowell, among others—hoped GGW would foster stronger relationships between top female executives and promising young leaders, given the pivotal role many of them had seen mentorship play in their own success and advancement. One could say that the initial focus was on connection, which the AGA cultivated by building a network of women through education and industry events, including its JULY 2019 www.ggbmagazine.com
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