A school in Hollywood, Florida (albeit an adult education centre) has become the first to offer a state approved course in slot machine maintenance. Hollywood is the home of one of the Seminole Tribe’s Hard Rock Casinos and demand for course entry is expected to be high. Slot machine technicians can make around US$18 per hour and the Seminoles will be expanding their operations to 15,000 gaming machines overall. Also there will be more slots operations coming to Florida when Miami-Dade pari-mutuels open.

According to an article in the Miami Herald, the Sheridan Technical Center in the Broward school district is offering the nine-week course in October to students over the age of 21 who pass a criminal background investigation and fingerprinting procedures. Florida gaming law will be part of the course and students will learn to polish their customer service skills. The course should help provide more technicians in a growing gaming industry that at present is said to be short of the necessary skills needed for slot machine maintenance.

The programme covers 90 hours tuition for slot machine attendant and 270 hours for the complete course for gaming repair technician. 25 students enrolled for the first course. A rather cynical comment came from ‘Time Ranger’ apparently writing with Las Vegas experience:

“23 of the 25 will graduate. 16 of the 23 will find work in the field/vocation that they are trained for. (the others may be employed in casinos, but not as slot techs) In 1 year, 8 will still be repairing slots (3 of the 16 will have been arrested.) In 3 years, 1 of the original 23 grads will still be a slot tech...IF he/she works for a company that will pay for the recurrent training that is necessary to keep up with the technology advancements.” (E-08.26.08)

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