Atlantic City is leading a wave of female casino leaders

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — For decades, women have dealt cards or served drinks in casinos, but they rarely got the chance to run the joint.

But women now run four of Atlantic City's nine casinos in what some industry executives and observers say could be the future of the gambling industry.

Caesars Entertainment hired Jacqueline Grace last week to run the Tropicana casino as its senior vice president and general manager. She is one of two Black women in charge of casinos in Atlantic City, joining Melonie Johnson, who took over leadership of the Borgata this year as its president.

The other women at the helm of Atlantic City casinos are Terry Glebocki, CEO of the Ocean Casino Resort, and Karie Hall, senior vice president and general manager of Bally’s.

“I hope I live to see the day where this is not considered news,” Johnson said. “I think the world is starting to catch up, but it's probably going to be another 10 years before we get all the inequity out of the workforce.”

The American Gaming Association, the national trade group for the casino industry, does not keep statistics on the number of U.S. casinos run by women, but numerous casino executives and analysts said they were hard-pressed to think of another market with a higher percentage of female-led casinos.

All agreed it is far less than the number of men who hold those jobs, with several placing it at about 10%.

“I think it speaks to the rapid changes in the gaming industry, which was traditionally very male-oriented, over the past few years,” said David Schwartz, a gambling historian with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Many of the reasons for the male domination had to do with the way casinos were run in Nevada. Women didn’t deal in Las Vegas until the 1970s, giving them far...