Wynn Resorts to Pay $5.6m to Settle Tip Dispute with Dealers

Wynn Resorts Ltd. will pay $5.6 million on a settlement over a tip dispute with approximately 1000 former and current table game dealers working at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore.

Table Dealers Shared Their Tip with Table Game Supervisors 

On Friday, the US District Judge Andrew Gordon said that the court finds the settlement to be a fair resolution of the dispute, which arose under the Fair Labor Standards Act for the collective action members, who are the defendant’s current or former employees and participate in the settlement.

In an email on Tuesday, Wynn Resorts spokesman Michael Weaver said he is pleased with the resolution. Wynn dealers’ representatives of UAL Local 3555 were not reached to respond to questions about the settlement.

According to court documents, Wynn Resorts Ltd. will pay $5.6 million on a settlement with 1000 current and former table dealers over a tip dispute for sharing tips with table game supervisors.

Only Wynn Las Vegas Has a Shared Dealers’ Tip Pool 

Wynn Las Vegas opened in 2005 and quickly started to draw gamblers who gave generous tips. Steve Wynn, the co-founder of Wynn Resorts Ltd. and former CEO, was worried at that time that table dealers were making more than their supervisors, which didn’t motivate employees to raise in rank. Wynn initiated the policy in 2006 and included sharing tips between table game dealers and table supervisors. 

In 2018, one of the deals stated that she believed she lost $100 000 since the institution of the policy. The dealers filed two lawsuits against the company, one in 2013 and one in 2018, to retain $50 million in loss because of shared tips.

Wynn Las Vegas is the only operator on the Strip to have a team lead position and the only one with a policy for shared dealers’ tip pool. 

Wynn Instituted a New Policy in 2018 

Wynn’s CEO since 2018, Matt Maddox, established a new policy two months after acquiring his new position, aimed to end the dispute. He raised dealers’ salaries by $2 per hour, which is $ 4000 a year. It was the first raise for the dealers within a decade. Under the new policy, the dealers shared with the team leads 12% of their pool tips in the casino. Dealers call them supervisors. 

According to the company’s management, they are not supervisors because they don’t manage work schedules and salaries and have no power over the dealers’ discipline. Therefore they can be included in the tips pool. 

Dealers Can Accept or Decline the Offer

The settlement, reached with the help of a mediator with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, could be accepted or declined by the dealers. The settlement would pay $10 000 for litigation and administrator fees and $1.4 million for attorney fees. Each plaintiff of the original lawsuit against the company, filed by Joseph Cesarz and Quy Ngoc Tang, would receive $10 000. Each of the 1000 current and former dealers would receive less than $4 170. If the employees don’t accept the offer, they can file class actions on their own.