Nevada Casino Dealers Association was as proto union for the dealers created by Tony Badillo who went on into County Commissioner. What Tony created was a place dealers could come learn do deal new games. This was in 94. If you wanted to learn a new game anywhere else, you had to pay $500 or more at one of the dealer schools. I don’t remember how I got involved, but I became the craps instructor. There was a game table for all the games including poker, blackjack, craps and roulette. There were also lay over felt for games such as 3 card poker and Texas hold em on the table not the poker tables. There were always 3 or 4 dealers wanting to learn craps. I rolled into there a couple times a week Usually about 5pm after having slept from the night before. It was fun for me. The dealers appreciated it. Tony started considering me a officer in the association.
One day Tony gets a call from the Teamsters. They wanted to know if we would teach out of work Auto worker in Detroit how to deal for backing the NCDA with a full Union status. I would have become #2 in the Union in Vegas. Tony jumped at the chance. He negotiated with them for about 2 months. After that time, we packed all the tables in shipping boxes. We had airline tickets paid for by the Teamsters. The hotels were set too. Nice ones. Then Tony got the last phone call the night before we were to leave in the morning. They said the deal was off. Nothing more. We never found out why. We guess the Casino Owners told them to back off. So, we went back to teaching locals for about 3 months and closed up as the mission had failed. I would have like to have been #2 in a local Union.
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