Interview with Jim Kilby

Oklahoma-born Jim Kilby was a 19 years old student on football scholarship. Then, he stopped to visit Vegas while on a trip to California. And everything changed.

He loved the city and came here to work in the gaming industry. Of course, you must be 21 to work in a casino. But in that golden period, only people under 25 were required to demonstrate their age before working. Guess what, Jim was growing up very fast and so he became, overnight, 6 years older :-)

He worked as dealer, floorman, shift manager, casino manager and Vice President of Casino Operations at the Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas Hilton, Dunes and several major casinos in the Caribbean. In 1975, went back to school to finish his academic preparation. Almost every book wrote about gaming in the last decades mention him in their credits. And he wrote his own book, "Casino Operations Management", in collaboration with Jim Fox. His website http://www.jimkilby.com provides information about the book and the gaming courses Jim is teaching at UNLV.

Even if he started quite early is career on the Strip, Jim Kilby doesn't miss the golden '70s. He says that, now, the gaming industry can provide huge career opportunities to every skilled person willing to work smart. In the past, there were several discriminations against female workers and minorities. We should remember that, not many decades ago, famous black entertainers weren't allowed to sleep in the resorts they were performing! The publicly traded companies cleaned up the situation, offering clear career paths in Fun City.

He is realistically optimistic about the future of Vegas. In the seventies, British casinos attracted Middle eastern players, taking them from Nevada casinos. In the late eighties, the Mexican highrollers were gone. Now, with Macau moving toward a gaming metropolis, Asian highrollers may decide to travel less frequently to Vegas. Also, on the domestic market side, Native American casinos are spreading all around US.

Jim thinks online gaming should be legalized and regulated. Horse betting is legal in several states. Casinos are all around US but Hawaii and Utah. So, why are American players forced to bet with foreign sportsbooks on Internet? Also, Antigua filled a complaint with the WTO for US restrictions against their sportsbooks. Australia and United Kingdom have already their own online gaming operators, so gaming on the Net is no longer about betting with unknown companies located in the middle of nowhere.

On his site http://www.jimkilby.com/, Jim says that "Thousands of books have been written from the player's perspective and hundreds of software programs developed that can help minimize or even eliminate the player's disadvantage. This site will be the first to help the other side, i.e., the casino!". Well, check his links section, you'll find some very good resources for advantage players :-)

If you want to read more about him, enjoy Scott Cameron's (CasinoDealers.Net) interview with Jim on http://www.dicedealer.com/jim_kilby_interview.htm