Casino Enterprise Management

Located just a half-hour drive from downtown Minneapolis, Canterbury Park Racetrack bills itself as Minnesota’s premier gaming and entertainment destination. Cut from the cloth of a classic gaming property, Canterbury is home to live horse racing, simulcast racing and a 24/7 card club featuring Texas hold’em, blackjack and more. The director of table games for Canterbury and that card room is Michael Hochman, who recently spoke with The Gaming Life about the increasingly humbled table game, why it still matters and cultivating a culture of service.

Hochman’s enthusiasm for gaming is undeniable. His first gig was “mucking” pan at the Sahara Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and he says he begged and pleaded with Gary Hickox, Sahara’s card room manager at the time, to give him a shot at dealing even though he had never dealt before. “I was drawn to the industry,” Hochman said. “I’d always had a passion for customer service and card playing was in my blood.”

Hickox must have seen this in Hochman, hiring him on for the graveyard shift. “I mucked pan and dealt Super 9, and they occasionally let me in the box to deal $1-$4 seven-card stud,” Hochman recalled. “I can remember walking to work that first day with my maroon bow tie and my ‘Michael from Georgia’ nametag feeling like I had just been elected president of the United States. I stayed in that card room for almost four years.”

Hochman says that, like “every other poker dealer in Las Vegas,” he took a year off to try his hand at playing pro. Alas, it wasn’t in the cards. “I was lucky enough to get broke about the same time the Luxor was about to open,” he said.

He was lucky enough to get hired on as part of the opening staff under a shift manager named Mickey Johanssen, who Hochman said served as his a mentor. “He used to call me Michael ‘O.T.’ Hochman because I was so broke when I first got that job that I always volunteered for overtime,” he said. “I’d tell him, ‘You need overtime dealers? O.T. is my middle name.’”

Hochman dealt at the Luxor for three years. Then, in 1996, while playing poker in Seattle, he overheard a dealer talking about a new casino opening. Hochman had found his next job. “I talked to the dealer, who made a phone call, and a friend of mine, Matthew Kaphan, and I got interviewed and hired right on the spot,” he recalled. “We ended up having to buy new plane tickets home so we could fill out applications and take drug tests. We flew back to Las Vegas, packed our stuff in a U-Haul and moved to Silverdale, Wash. We ended up renting an apartment out of a magazine having never seen the place. It was crazy. But I ended up getting the card room manager job there.”

In 1999, the HR department told Hochman that he had about a year to train in a tribal member as his own replacement. But, ever fortuitous in his job seeking, that’s was right about when Hochman read about the opening of a new poker room at Canterbury Park. “I flew out to Minneapolis in January to check it out and interview,” he said. “I got a phone call once I was back in Washington from Al Giardina, who was working as the staffing and training manager for Canterbury at the time. He said, ‘We’ve filled all the poker positions. Can you teach Super 9? We need someone who knows what they’re doing in the pit.’”

As it happened, Hochman could teach Super 9. He’s been at Canterbury ever since and loves it. “Where do I start?” he said. “On a personal note, it’s the best job I’ve ever had.”

During the decade he’s been at Canterbury, Hochman says he has had affection for almost everyone he’s worked with … some maybe more than others, as he even met his wife there.

From a professional perspective, Hochman has remained completely engaged with gaming. “I have had the opportunity to face the interesting challenges associated with opening in a new gaming jurisdiction,” he explained. “Canterbury Park was the first poker room in the state and also the first property in the state to have table games other than blackjack. I have also recently been involved in a substantial remodel that, while challenging, now gives the table games department a chance to shine.”

Hochman also identifies a few current and future challenges to be contended with. “With the current economic climate, it’s become a challenge just to do what we’ve always done,” he said. “I’d say the biggest challenge facing table games, poker or any entertainment or hospitality industry right now is personnel. It’s tough to develop a culture of service. We’re lucky in that we attract seasoned employees from a lot of the other properties and we get our pick of the litter, so to speak, but keeping everyone positive, forward thinking and motivated is tough.”

“If the industry as a whole doesn’t concentrate on service training and measurement of that training, they’re missing out,” he continued. “Lots of people sell gambling. There is a mega-casino with slot machines about five miles away from Canterbury. There are several other poker rooms within an hour of the Twin Cities. Making sure that players are treated like players is the industry’s biggest challenge.”

Unfortunately, Hochman said the ability to attract top talent isn’t what it used to be. “I hate to say it, but the level of professionalism and the pride that dealers seemed to have back when I was breaking into the industry is difficult to find these days,” he noted. “I think the enormous gaming expansion of the early 1990s brought such a huge influx of people into the industry that it was bound to happen. Now there are dealers everywhere, and I know I sound like an old man, but it is difficult to find employees who take a visible sense of pride in their work. Dealing used to be a skill, being a floor man used to be a skill. A lot of times now, it just seems to be a job.”

Still, Hochman considers himself lucky when it comes to staffing. “We’re where everyone wants to work,” he explained. “I have no shortage of applications when I post for a position, and I get to pick the very top tier from all the local talent.”

This results in “amazing” co-workers and, according to Hochman, the “hardest working staff in the table games world.” And possibly the best trained too, as each dealer is skilled in dealing seven different games. As for Hochman’s pit management staff, he says they’re simply “unreal.”  “I’ve been blessed to work with an outstanding, energetic and positive staff of pit bosses, most of who have been with me since April of 2000 and all of whom worked their way up from dealing,” he elaborated. “I hope we all work together forever.”

Hochman strongly believes that, along with a strong staff, treating people right and providing a great time in a nice playing environment is the best strategy for attracting and retaining loyal customers—better even that, say, a 99-cent shrimp cocktail or a match-play coupon. “A lot of properties rely on gimmicks and promotions to drive their business,” he said. “I fight marketing hard on this issue ... I’ve watched properties promote themselves out of business and completely lose sight of the fact that, when it is all said and done, players go where they’re comfortable and where they like the staff. The players who chase promotions aren’t who I want to cater to. I want to empower the staff to have a great time with the players, turn up the music and create a fun, comfortable atmosphere to play in.”

For now at least, Hochman’s table games enjoy another advantage: no trace of spinning reels, flashing lights or clanging bells. In fact, slot machines remain five miles from Hochman’s tables. “I’d guess some table games departments have it harder than we do at Canterbury,” he admitted. “I don’t have to compete with the slot department for players.”

With recent state developments, however, that could change. Slots may soon be a possibility at Canterbury Park, but Hochman isn’t worried about their impact on his tables. In fact, his reaction was just the opposite: “There’s no doubt that the addition of slots to Canterbury Park would be an amazing opportunity, not only for our property, but also for our state. Some estimate Minnesota’s 2011–2013 biennium budget deficit at $6 billion, and legislation to allow slots at Canterbury Park could contribute a significant amount to the state. I also believe it would help make our community more of a destination.”

Hochman’s Las Vegas experience taught him that the more property, the more people. “For Canterbury Park specifically, I think it would allow us to expand our offerings to include convention space, an equine arena, a hotel—the possibilities are endless, really,” he said. “And on a personal level, it would be extremely exciting to learn a new facet of the business.”

Technology is another change Hochman has watched closely, though he sees it more as an opportunity for table gaming than a threat. “I think the new table games have added a great deal to the standard fare of blackjack, roulette and craps,” he explained. “For a property like ours, which only has card games, the advent of progressive jackpots has been a boon. … I also think that it drives incremental business. I’ve seen players who favor the games with progressive jackpots who we never used to see on the traditional games. I’ve also seen amazing developments in player relationship management and player tracking. There is no doubt in my mind that driving marketing from that enormous amount of data is something that’s necessary to keep table games departments vibrant.”

Hochman’s enthusiasm for gaming goes beyond his day job. In fact, if it wasn’t his day job, he says he knows exactly what he’d be doing:  “looking for a way into the casino business.”

He professes that, after all these years, pan is still his favorite game, “no doubt,” but his favorite game on the Canterbury floor is EZ Baccarat. “It is a brilliant no-commission baccarat game (hats off to T.J. Tejeda) that doesn’t change the play or nature of baccarat,” he said. “We put one of them on the floor in December and another last month. To me it was a no-brainer—this game is awesome.”

Hochman also a fan of gambling film classics, especially The Hustler. “I still get goose bumps when Finley says, ‘I don’t play pool, Mr. Felson, I play billiards. My house, my game,’ ” he said. “Mamet’s House of Games is a close second. ‘Call? You only call? Well, let’s go visit Mr. More!’  ‘The Cincinnati Kid!’  ‘California Split!’ ”

Now that’s enthusiasm for the game.

Abram Sauer is the Senior Editor for Casino Enterprise Management. He can be reached at abe[at]aceme.org.