Gangster Gamblers

About Gangster Gamblers

“Despite the enhanced benefits implementation starting before the union sought recognition of any Red Rock employees, the District Court found that the timing and rollout of the benefits were intended to deter the union’s organising effort and ordered Red Rock to recognise and bargain with the union pending completion of the board’s administrative proceedings,” Station’s SCOTUS petition reads in part.

While Station has remained steadfast in its opposition to Culinary, the union has made gains elsewhere in recent years. The entire Las Vegas Strip is now unionised, and Culinary used city-wide strikes as leverage in late 2023 and early 2024 to gain new multi-year labour agreements with the city’s major operators, including Wynn, Caesars and MGM.

Other than Station, Las Vegas Sands had been the other largest non-union holdout in Las Vegas for many years. But when the Venetian-Palazzo was sold to Apollo Global Management in 2021, the firm had no issues with Culinary and ratified the property’s first-ever deal with the union in 2024.

About Gangster Gamblers

Entain highlighted that 11 of 20 Premier League clubs currently hold sponsorship or advertising arrangements with gambling operators lacking a Gambling Commission license—up from government estimates of eight clubs during the 2025/26 season.

“The government made clear in February that it would bring in a ban and it should do so immediately,” said Entain CEO Stella David, noting that clubs entering new agreements had already been warned. “Inconvenience is not an excuse for inaction.”

Entain cited third-party analysis forecasting that bets placed by UK consumers with unlicensed operators could skyrocket from £17 billion ($22.8 billion) in 2025 to more than £33 billion ($44.2 billion) by 2028 if left unchecked.

How to play Gangster Gamblers

Large and demanding portfolios were highlighted as a key challenge, with 64% of managers overseeing 100 or more VIPs, while one in five managed more than 500. 

The report highlighted the intense workload by estimating that a manager looking after 250 players would have roughly 100 seconds to commit to each player each day if their time was split equally. Data quality and fragmentation were also issues. 

Grygorenko emphasised that prioritisation was the key to adapting these portfolio sizes.