An Interview with Kay Strong: Poker Room Manager at Joker’s Wild
Kay Strong: Poker Room Manager at Joker’s Wild
Kay Strong was born in Seattle, Washington. After graduation from high school, Kay attended Central Washington University studying Political Science, but in her fourth year of college she decided to pursue a career in broadcast news and enrolled in a broadcasting school in Seattle.
After graduation in 1981, Kay began her broadcasting career in Great Falls, Montana as a disc jockey at K-99 FM. A year later it was off to KYKC in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and in 1985 she accepted a position as Production Director and drive-time DJ at KYYX in Las Vegas. She worked in Las Vegas for the next 6 years in radio including “Oldies 108,” “Power 97,” “K-LITE,” and was also a booth announcer at KLASTV Channel 8. It was six fun-filled years of meeting every celebrity that rolled through Las Vegas, including such legends as Sammy Davis Jr.
Kay’s broadcasting career ended when she decided to join her husband in his honey-producing business, taking care of, and harvesting honey from over 2,000 hives of bees. Eight months of the year were spent in Lewistown, Montana, then it was back to Vegas for the remaining four, until 1997 when the business was sold.
That same year, the couple bought the Gold Mine Bar on Convention Center Drive in Las Vegas, and although the marriage ended in 1999, Kay kept the bar. Kay’s clientele was primarily convention workers so when the 9/11 tragedy struck, the business took a sharp decline and with debts piling up, the bar was sold in 2003.
Kay was at a loss as to what to do since she had lost a lot of money and was in the hole. She decided the casino business was the thing to pursue. She liked the idea of becoming a casino host so she took a break-in position with Sunset Station as a Slot Ambassador. The position was nothing more than a lot of talking and walking the casino floor trying to get customers to sign up for a slot card. After one year as Slot Ambassador she was offered the position of Casino Host but after some thought as to a career as a Host she decided against taking the position.
Kay was noticing the overwhelming popularity in poker and decided that was the direction to move and enrolled in dealing school.
In 2004 Kay graduated from dealing school and was hired on as a poker dealer at Joker’s Wild in Henderson, Nevada. In March of 2004 she was promoted to Swing Shift Supervisor and in October of 2004 she was appointed Cardroom Manager.
DB: Will you be making any changes now that you are the new Cardroom Manager?
KS: Yes, actually we have made a few minor changes and we will be making some major changes soon but I’m not at liberty to divulge the changes until they are approved. What I can tell you is, they will be exciting. We will also be making some changes that our customers have suggested.
DB: Has anything changed since the poker room opened last year?
KS: We’ve added another table and redecorated the room.
DB: What live poker games are offered at Joker’s Wild?
KS: We spread $2-$4 limit hold’em on a daily basis and $3-$6 limit hold’em when requested. We also spread a $1-$2 blind nolimit hold’em game in the evenings and weekends. We will do our best to accommodate our player’s requests to spread whatever they would like to play.
DB: Are you running any daily poker tournaments?
KS: Yes, we run a 2 p.m. no-limit event daily with a $25 buy-in and one $10 rebuy and Sunday-Thursday at 7:30 p.m. we hold the same event. On Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., it’s no-limit hold’em with a $35 buy-in, a $10 rebuy and a $10.00 add-on and is limited to two tables.
DB: What incentives does Joker’s Wild offer their players?
KS: Players receive a $1.00 per hour in comps with no maximum amount of hours per day. They can accumulate as many hours as they play but can only redeem $25 in comps per day.
DB: Are most of your players locals?
KS: The majority of our customers are locals but they bring in a lot players when they have relatives and friends visiting from out of town.
DB: Is Joker’s Wild offering any promotions at this time?
KS: Yes, we are giving away $599 to players that play approximately 130 hours in one month, which breaks down to about four hours and 20 minutes per day. Players can earn double hours twice a day, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. That means players only have to play two hours and 10 minutes a day during those times to receive the $599.
DB: Now that it’s football season are you running any football promotions?
KS: We have Football Cash Giveaways on Sundays from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Mondays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Players receive drawing tickets for every aces-full or better hands. Drawings are held every hour and players must be seated and playing. Each hourly drawing is separate from other hours and increase by $25 if no one wins, if there is a winner the prize pool reverts back to $25.
DB: Can you tell us why locals should come play at Joker?s Wild?
KS: We make playing poker fun and we have friendly, courteous dealers. We also offer a special menu for our players with table side dining.
DB: Who is responsible for making your job a little easier?
KS: Besides my staff, which are the best group of people around, I get a tremendous amount of support from Vince Wickliffe our Assistant General Manager and Lief Erickson our General Manager. They are both extremely supportive of poker and they understand the worth of a poker room in today?s market. That understanding makes my job a pleasure.
Filed under: Poker News
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