Fontainebleau Cut Dozens of Dealers After Overbuilding Its Pit

Fontainebleau Las Vegas cut dozens of table games dealers on May 27, 2025, two people inside the $3.7 billion resort putting the total as high as 60. The 67-story tower on the north Strip had opened 17 months earlier with a plan to staff a luxury pit as if the tables would stay full.

The company would not confirm a number. It called the move ordinary hiring math. The dealers who were pulled into mandatory meetings, then walked to the curb, lived a different version of that math.

Security Walked Dealers Off the Property on May 27

Five days earlier, insiders told a local account that Fontainebleau planned to push most remaining table games dealers to part-time and hold the roster near 120. Staff said the rules were unclear and talked about a discrimination suit. That suit was never shown in public records reviewed for this piece.

On Tuesday, May 27, dealers were summoned to meetings with a table games leader. Most were let go on the spot. Security then escorted them out. @LasVegasLocally posted that dozens of dealers walked out with security, along with a screenshot of a meeting email that never reads as good news.

Walking a dealer off a live floor is how a casino treats a theft or a fight. Using the same ritual for a roster cut is how a labor decision turns into a scene. The north end of the Strip already had a traffic problem. The escorts made it a people problem.

THE WEEK THE PIT SHRANK

1. May 22, 2025: Insiders say most dealers will go part-time, with a target near 120 remaining.
2. May 22, 2025: The Nevada Gaming Commission grants President Maurice Wooden a two-year key-employee license and, in the same hearing, discloses an anti-money-laundering review of credit issued at the property.
3. May 27, 2025: Dozens of dealers attend mandatory meetings, lose their jobs, and leave under security escort.
4. May 28, 2025: Fontainebleau declines to give a count and points to about 6,250 people still on payroll.

Two people with direct knowledge of the cuts put the dealer total in a range from dozens to as many as 60. Even 60 jobs is under 1% of 6,250. The pit felt the loss in a way the rest of the tower did not, because a closed blackjack table is visible from the aisle.

We continue to evaluate our business needs and adjust our hiring strategy accordingly. It is a customary practice in every industry and Fontainebleau Las Vegas continues to have a positive impact in the approximate 6,250 current members it employs as well as the multiple vendors and partners associated with the resort.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas, statement, May 2025

Resorts World, The Venetian, and properties run by MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment had already trimmed shifts or reworked staffing as visitor spend cooled. Fontainebleau’s cut sat in that weather. It also sat on a building that had been selling a different forecast since 2023.

The Resort Hired for 6,500 Jobs and a Full Pit

On September 13, 2023, the company said it would welcome more than 6,500 members before opening, pending approvals. A five-day fair was set to fill about 1,500 food, beverage, and nightlife jobs. President Mark Tricano said the guest experience would start with those hires.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas’ guest experience begins with its MEMBERS, and as a resort, we are committed to recruiting individuals who are both passionate about luxury hospitality and eager to be a part of history.

Mark Tricano, president, Fontainebleau Las Vegas hiring release, September 13, 2023

By mid-November 2023 he told state gaming regulators the property intended to hire 7,100 people and to have 6,500 on the books by opening day, December 13, 2023. About 5,000 were already hired as of November 16. The tower has 3,644 rooms, more than 150,000 square feet of gaming space, and 550,000 square feet of meeting space. It was built by Fontainebleau Development, founded by Jeffrey Soffer, with Koch Real Estate Investments.

May 2025’s figure of about 6,250 members is 250 below the 6,500 opening target. The dealer cuts did not create that entire gap. They showed where the company was willing to take the next slice: the most labor-heavy game on the floor, in a luxury brand that still needed dealers to look like a luxury pit.

The resort had already closed restaurants and cut staff in November 2024, less than a year after opening. Workers from that round described two weeks of severance with no extra pay for time on the job. Table games were next.

Culinary Won a Contract. Dealers Did Not.

On December 19, 2024, after 18 hours of talks, Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 reached a tentative deal. Members ratified it on December 30, 2024, with 99.6% support. The first-time contract covering nearly 3,300 workers runs from January 1, 2025, through September 30, 2028.

The unit is guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, and kitchen workers. Table games dealers are not on that list. For the first time in the Culinary Union’s 90-year history, every major Strip resort was under a Culinary contract. Dealers at Fontainebleau still sat outside that tent when the May meetings started.

This milestone agreement not only guarantees job security and fair wages, but also upholds the high standards the Culinary Union has tirelessly fought to establish across Las Vegas.

Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer, Culinary Union Local 226, February 28, 2025

Kila Boswell, a guest room attendant, said the wage piece was how she would support her family. Matthew Bonner, a utility porter, named health care and a pension. Those protections did not travel down the aisle to the blackjack tables. A dealer cut at a newly unionized hotel can look, from the pit, like the house found the one craft that still had no recall language.

Culinary represents 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno. That scale is why a Strip hotel now bargains rooms and restaurants as a bloc. It is also why a table games reduction can proceed on a separate track, with security at the door and no union notice in the public file.

Why Did a $3.7 Billion Luxury Pit Shed Dealers?

Fontainebleau sits at 2777 S. Las Vegas Blvd., next to the Las Vegas Convention Center expansion and far from the dense walk between Bellagio and MGM Grand. Soffer’s Miami Beach hotel is a known brand. The Las Vegas copy opened into a Strip that already had Wynn and The Venetian as the north-end luxury stops, and into a visitor mix that has been putting more money into machines than into live tables.

The casino, in the company’s own later telling, struggled to build a player list big enough for a property of this size. Empty chairs on a weekday are not a branding problem. They are a wage problem. A dealer is paid to stand at a table that is open. A slot bank does not send anyone home when the aisle thins out.

Locals-facing new builds filled a different need. Durango, a Station Casinos property, opened in the same December 2023 window and drew neighborhood play. Fontainebleau was selling a 67-story night out on a stretch of boulevard that has never been the stroll. One reply to the walkout posts put it in a line the floor already knew: the tower arrived late for the city it was built to impress.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The range: The company gave no count; two people inside the property said dozens, and as many as 60, dealers lost jobs on May 27, 2025.
• The payroll: Fontainebleau said it still employed about 6,250 people after the cut.
• The union line: Culinary’s contract covers nearly 3,300 rooms and food workers and does not list table games dealers.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A filed suit: Staff talked about a class action over favoritism before the firings; no public filing was attached to those claims.
• The 120-dealer target: The part-time plan and the “keep 120” figure came from insiders, not from a company notice.

Luxury pits on the Strip have usually been the last to shrink. That is why this cut stings in a way a Flamingo table closure does not. A $3.7 billion opening is supposed to buy immunity from mid-week blackjack math. It did not.

Fewer Live Tables Across Las Vegas

The May cut was one property’s roster. The city’s dealer count had been falling for years. A July 2026 analysis that combined U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment figures with Nevada Gaming Control Board casino counts found 15,530 dealers in Vegas in 2025, down from 18,330 in 2010, a 15.2% drop, even as more casinos opened. Dealers per casino fell from 124 to 88, a 29% decline.

Live tables in that study’s set fell from 1,992 in 2010 to 1,600 in 2025, a 20% drop. The average floor went from 91 tables to 70, a 23% decline. Tables per million tourists went from 2.43 to 1.80, down 26%. Electronic tables took some of that space. Golden Gate in downtown Las Vegas removed its remaining live games in October 2025 and moved dealers to other properties in the same ownership group.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 14,940 gambling dealers in the Las Vegas metro in May 2023, with a mean wage of $14.61 an hour, or $30,390 a year, before tips. Nevada as a whole had 17,120 dealers. Those BLS figures are a 2023 snapshot. The 2025 citywide count sits on a different year and a slightly different map. Both point the same way: fewer people standing behind felt.

TABLE GAMES KEPT, AND TABLES CUT, 2010 TO 2025

Wynn and Bellagio barely moved. Value floors gutted the live game. Fontainebleau opened as a luxury product and still behaved, on labor, like a floor that had too many open tables for the bodies in the seats. That is the tell. A new high-end pit is no longer a shield for dealer headcount.

HOW THE LIVE GAME GOT THINNER

• Fewer dealers: 18,330 in 2010, 15,530 in 2025, per the 2026 BLS-and-board compilation.
• Fewer tables: 1,992 to 1,600 in the same set, a 20% cut.
• Machines first: Downtown’s Golden Gate went all-electronic in October 2025 after closing its last craps table.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board’s abstract for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, put Strip net income of $154,188,391, down 81.2% from the prior year. Strip total revenue was $21,077,838,684, down 3.7%. Strip gaming revenue was $5,509,848,670, also down 3.7%. Statewide, 305 casinos that each won at least $1 million from gaming posted $1,697,540,577 in net income, down 34.8%. A small drop in win and a steep drop in profit is how labor, rooms, and debt show up after the hold percentage is taken out.

Regulators Opened a Credit File the Same Week

Wooden, who became president in January 2024 after a long run at Wynn Las Vegas, received his key-employee license on a 2-0-style unanimous vote with a two-year limit. He has to come back in 2027. Commissioners had just learned, from papers in his own licensing packet, that the Nevada Gaming Control Board was reviewing credit the owners had issued, and whether those markers ran afoul of Bank Secrecy Act anti-money-laundering rules.

Wooden is not an owner. Commissioners still asked what he knew. Board Chairman Kirk Hendrick stopped the discussion in the room.

This is currently under investigation and it’s therefore confidential by law. So, I don’t want to go any deeper into this matter until the board has had an opportunity to review it and, of course, speak with the licensee.

Kirk Hendrick, chairman, Nevada Gaming Control Board, May 22, 2025 hearing

Attorney Dan Reaser, speaking for Wooden, said the credit questions had not been raised in the investigation of Wooden’s own application, so there had been no chance to answer them until that day. The probe is a separate track from the dealer roster. It is the other file that opened in the same week the pit was told to shrink, and it is the one the company cannot describe as customary hiring practice.

The first month after opening had already cost the property senior vice president of casino operations Michael Clifford, chief operating officer Colleen Birch, and chief marketing officer Shane Smith. A luxury tower that loses its casino and operating chiefs that fast is a tower still looking for a floor plan that matches the building. The dealers hired into that plan were the ones who could be walked out in an afternoon.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many Table Games Dealers Did Fontainebleau Lay Off?

Fontainebleau never published a figure. Two people at the property with direct knowledge of the meetings said the total was dozens, and could be as many as 60, on May 27, 2025. A separate insider account days earlier said managers wanted to hold about 120 dealers on the books, mostly part-time, which is a roster target, not a confirmed leftover count.

Are Fontainebleau Las Vegas Dealers in the Culinary Union?

No. The Culinary and Bartenders contract that took effect January 1, 2025, names guest room attendants, servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, and kitchen workers. Table games dealers are a different craft, often in a separate union or in none, which is why the May 2025 pit cuts could proceed without the recall rights written into that Culinary deal.

When Did Fontainebleau Las Vegas Open, and Who Owns It?

The resort opened December 13, 2023, after a project that was first pitched in 2005, stalled in the Great Recession, and was revived when Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development partnered with Koch Real Estate Investments. Brett Mufson is named as Soffer’s partner at the development firm. The Las Vegas tower is a sister to Fontainebleau Miami Beach.

How Does Las Vegas Dealer Pay Compare With Other Markets?

BLS May 2023 figures put the Las Vegas metro mean at $14.61 an hour, or $30,390 a year, before tips, below the national dealer mean of $19.25 an hour. Tips at high-limit Strip pits can lift that total well above the wage survey, which is why a luxury opening could still recruit, and why a cut at that opening still hits a trade that lives on the mix of base pay and tokes.

The tower is still open, still hiring for other crafts, still putting acts in BleauLive and DJs in LIV. The pit that was staffed for a packed opening night is the part of the $3.7 billion plan that got walked to the door.