Boyd Gaming named a top employer in Vegas
Company owns Valley Forge Casino Resort
UPPER MERION» What happens in Vegas is apparently good for Valley Forge.
The Las Vegas company that now owns Valley Forge Casino Resort was recently named one of the best places to work in Vegas.
Boyd Gaming Corporation ranked fourth in a recent study curated by career website Zippia, which relies on a data-based approach to determine the best companies to work for, ensuring consistency with employee sentiment, according to Zippia’s marketing strategist Drew Walters.
“Boyd’s recognition on this list reflects the company’s strong financial health, diversity, and salaries relative to similar positions in the area,” Walters noted.
In its overview of Boyd Gaming, Zippia noted that the company is always looking “for fun, passionate people who are committed to exemplifying pride and excellence in all they do. The company offers all team members a choice among three different health care plans so that they can get the medical coverage that best fits their needs.”
Last December, Boyd Gaming, which operates 24 gaming facilities in seven states in the U.S. — a dozen of them in Vegas — announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire the ever-evolving First Avenue fun palace from Valley Forge Convention Center Part-
ners LP for a cash consideration of $280.5 million.
Valley Forge is the company’s first casino property in Pennsylvania.
On the phone from the company’s Vegas headquarters, spokesman David Strow said he saw a lot of long term potential in the King of Prussia location
“I’ve heard fabulous things about the King of
Prussia area, and with the presence of Valley Forge National Historical Park, there are a lot of things drawing people to that area. Pennsylvania has emerged over the last several years to become one of the largest gaming markets in the United States,” Strow added. “It’s one of the areas where we didn’t have a presence before, so we’re very excited about the opportunity to get into the Pennsylvania market.”
In keeping with new legislation, the $10 admission casino fee that had been enforced since the casino opened at 12:01 a.m. on March 31, 2012, had been eliminated, which made the situation that much more appealing to Boyd, Strow allowed.
“Obviously, that makes the opportunity to operate in Pennsylvania more attractive, but even before this legislation passed, Pennsylvania was an attractive market for us. It was a state where we did not currently have operations and it’s the second largest gaming
state in the country. It trails only Nevada. In terms of commercial casinos, Pennsylvania is now ahead of New Jersey.”
In a recent press release, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which oversees all aspects of the state’s casino industry, along with oversight of new gaming initiatives to the Race Horse Development and Gaming Act, announced approval of the Change of Control of the Category 3 Slot Machine Licensee Valley Forge Convention Center Partners, L.P.,
operator of the Valley Forge Casino Resort in Montgomery County, to Boyd Gaming Corporation.
Under the agreement approved by the Board, the license held since March 2011 by Valley Forge Convention Center Partners, L.P. will be transferred to Boyd Gaming Corporation., a publicly traded company based in Las Vegas, the release noted.
The Board also indicated that Boyd Gaming must pay to the Commonwealth a change of control fee of $1.35 million.
The release added that Pennsylvania’s casino industry currently consists of 10 stand-alone and racetrack casinos in operation, along with the two smaller resort casinos, which collectively employ 18,000 people and annually generate roughly $1.4 billion in tax revenue from slot machine and table games play.
According to the release, the largest portion of the money is used for property tax reduction for all Pennsylvania homeowners.