UMass Donahue Institute

Through the establishment of the casino industry in Massachusetts, lawmakers provided avenues for the
creation of new jobs, revenue, and economic growth in the state. The Social and Economic Impacts of
Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) study, of which the Economic and Public Policy Research unit at
the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute (UMDI) is a part, strives to understand the impact of
the casinos on the people and economy of the Commonwealth. The purpose of this report is to examine
workforce conditions at the Commonwealth’s three casinos, Encore Boston Harbor (EBH), MGM
Springfield (MGM), and Plainridge Park Casino (PPC), and analyze the extent to which Massachusetts
casino jobs are benefiting the casino workforce, or otherwise assess the quality of casino jobs.

To do so, this analysis utilizes payroll data to analyze patterns in hiring, compensation, mobility, and
turnover at the Commonwealth’s casinos from January 2022 through December 2022. While some of
these conditions will require deeper investigation and data collection, the detailed payroll data provided
to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission by the casino operators provides insight into the current
state of the Massachusetts casinos’ workforce. Therefore, the goal of this analysis is to explore the
conditions experienced by the casino workforce and identify questions for future research related to the
quality of casino jobs in Massachusetts.

In this report, we first describe the three casinos and their regional workforce context followed by an
overview of the composition of the workforce in Massachusetts as well as within the Accommodations
and Food Services sector. With operator data from the casinos, we then describe the characteristics and
composition of the industry’s workforce, pertinent to the discussion of job quality. The final section
examines the quality of casino jobs, both across the industry and at individual casinos, by analyzing
selected indicators of good jobs in the categories of recruitment and hiring, wages, turnover,
promotions, and diversity, equity and inclusion. It is important to note that this assessment does not
feature any data from the employees, such as interview or survey data, and only analyzes payroll data
with information on hours, wages, and demographics. As our conclusion will suggest, qualitative data
representing the opinions of the operators and employees themselves would complement this analysis
and should be considered in future job quality research.