Ameristar Casinos Employee Review

Former Employee – worked at Ameristar Casinos

Pros – People (Team Members) were great (for the most part) and the casino itself had an overall fun and diverse staff of people. Benefits were fairly decent. Team Member dining area was exceptional.

Cons – How well you do (are appreciated/liked/evaluated) is generally and quite often based on the team member’s popularity and acquiescence to management directives rather than one's qualifications and abilities. Failure to be popular and/or selected to be included in the “In Crowd” ensures a very short term of employment with Ameristar.

In addition, I was told that at Ameristar a management/executive “Suggestion” was actually a management/executive “Directive” and expected to be followed and/or executed. This is difficult when several “Chiefs” give differing “Suggestions” that are at times vastly conflicting ensuring that you are placed in a Catch 22 situation as you have to pick one of these recommendations or disregard all of them and implement your own ideas. Choosing one suggestion/directive over the others predictably means that the other managers/executives feel that their ideas and suggestions were ignored creating an atmosphere of animosity and resentment by those whose ideas were not applied.

At all levels of the casino both backstabbing and preferential treatment run rampant at the Kansas City location. Everyone appears to be out to ensure that they get in the limelight and in their relentless attempts to compete for the recognition of their superiors many of them run over anyone who gets in the way of their success. The strong fear of management/executive reprisal combined with the overwhelming anxiety of feeling that one’s job is constantly threatened drives team members and management to point out everything and everyone for anything they can (no matter how insignificant) that elevates them in their position and diverts the attention off of them and their job performance and/or lack thereof. Certain team members do next to nothing other than the previously mentioned sabotage of their follow TMs while others work exhaustibly to do their jobs proficiently.

They have an open-door policy, but it is extremely ineffective and many of the staff profess as to how incredible they are (the HR TM relations department in particular although it is not limited to that department alone) and how much they care about their Team members, however; they continue to do just the opposite by means of their disrespect through their actions and general lack of and/or inadequate resolution to many of the issues presented to them.

To conclude, the work environment (other than the associations I had with most TMs) was frustrating, confusing and disappointing. This is most definitely a job that I would strongly encourage anyone that I feel a concern about (friends/family) to “Avoid at All Costs” especially if you appreciate a more structured and professional work environment. To those others reading this – Take from it what you will.

Advice to Senior Management – To echo another reviewer’s suggestion: “Get your act together, before it is too late.” Seek out the people hidden in the system that “appear” to be doing their jobs, however; do very little other than create issues for other TMs.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend