Category Archives for Region: Africa

Why do Las Vegas casinos hire so many Asian dealers?

A blackjack dealer in Las Vegas. Photo by Dolan Halbrook (Flickr/Creative Commons). Halbrook asked in the caption: "BTW, I think at least 50% of the dealers were Asian women. Does anyone know why?" Here's an answer.

In his study of casino labor in the United States and South Africa, sociologist Jeffrey Sallaz found that, in 2005, 34% of Nevada dealers were Asian, though Asians made up only 4.5% of the state population and less than 3% of Nevada visitors at that point (p. 207). Sallaz argues that the disproportionate hiring of Asian dealers can be explained partially by the casino industry’s response to demands from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other groups for proportionate African American representation in the workforce. Instead of hiring more African Americans, the casinos diversified the workforce by hiring Asian immigrants. They could then argue that they have made strides in incorporating minorities:

Adaptation to changing rules in this case entailed not hiring African-American dealers to achieve equity, as the decree specified, but employing Asian immigrants to display diversity. (p. 245)

Why Asian immigrants? Sallaz says that it is not because casinos can pay immigrants less; all dealers make near the federal minimum wage. He also says that it is not because of increased demand from Asian customers, which I find surprising considering the number of Asian people I’ve seen roaming around Las Vegas casinos and the growing recognition of Asian and Asian American buying power. Instead, he says that “Asian immigrants best fit some pre-existing stereotype on the part of managers as to what constitutes a ‘good dealer.’”:
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Where are the world’s biggest overseas Chinese and Indian communities?

The Economist posted a map of the “20 biggest destination for Chinese and Indian migrants.” This is a very misleading title. Cross-checking with some Census websites has confirmed my suspicion that this is actually a map of people of Chinese/Indian descent, not of number of migrants. The 2010 American Community Survey (accessed through American FactFinder) says that there were 4,110,787 people of Chinese descent in the US, with a margin of error of ±53,973. It also says that there are 2,166,526 people who reported that their place of birth was China (apparently including Taiwan and Hong Kong), with a margin of error of ±35,127. The 2006 Canadian Census shows that there were 1,346,510 people of Chinese descent in the country at that point (which is the number in the map above), 466,940 of whom were immigrants from the People’s Republic of China.

In any case, it’s interesting to visualize the Chinese and Indian diasporas this way. Did you know that there are 1.22 million people of Indian descent in South Africa?

Image credit: The Economist.