One of the innovations Anne Simmons Nicholson developed instructing casino staff members was eliminating a dreaded staple of training sessions.
“We don’t do death by PowerPoint,” Nicholson says during an interview with CDC Gaming. “We’ve all been there, and we hate it.”
Nicholson will be inducted into the American Gaming Association Gaming Hall of Fame during the upcoming Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. She joins Charles Lombardo, a slots operation pioneer who worked with MGM, Bally’s, Caesars and Seminole Gaming, and David Berman, head of Macquarie Capital – Americas and Global Head of Consumer, as 2025 inductees.
Nicholson says she was “dumbfounded” when notified of her induction.
“I had to read the email four times before I processed that it was me that they were inducting into the whole thing,” she says. “In our industry, it’s quite a prestigious award. I’m sure there are some, but I don’t know too many other small women-owned business owners that have been inducted.”
Nicholson’s company, the Nicholson Group, has but 12 employees. She has trained employees for operators including Grand Casinos, the Stratosphere, Station Casinos, and the Rio/Harrah’s group, and was Director of Volunteer Operations with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter and Paralympic Games.
“Ann Simmons Nicholson is more than an industry influencer; she’s a visionary force who has transformed the landscape of gaming through her unwavering commitment to advocacy, leadership, and the advancement of women,” says Global Gaming Women Executive Vice President Pam Buckley. “Her impact is not measured in accolades, but in the thousands of lives she’s empowered, the communities she’s built, and the future she continues to shape.”
Her training philosophy is more than just eschewing those dreaded PowerPoint presentations. Nicholson tries to impress on trainees that the best approach is to treat patrons as if they are guests in their own homes.
“How would they be welcomed?” Nicholson says of patrons. “What would you do if something happened that wasn’t what they expected, or something happened that wasn’t good? (Trainees) go through a lot of activities. Inevitably people say to us that they’ve been through a lot of orientations, but this one was the most memorable because it was fun. … And when adults are having fun, they’re engaged.”
No matter whether the trainee is a slot attendant or mid-level executive, the training sessions are similar.
“You still have a customer, you still have a guest,” Nicholson says. “It might be an internal guest, and we just need to make sure that we’re communicating with those team members in a language they understand. Because everybody wants hospitality, everybody wants to feel welcomed and treated like they are valuable.”
Nicholson also was instrumental in launching Global Gaming Women in 2011. Former GGW President Cassie Stratford, Boyd Gaming’s Senior Vice President – Legal Operations and Compliance, notes that Nicholson’s skills were invaluable during the organization’s birth. During launch sessions, Nicholson’s effervescent personality shone through.
“She’s up their being vulnerable while still being funny while telling jokes and stories about tangible, substantive skill sets,” Stratford says. “Very few people can do that, have that combination and capture an audience that way.”
Nicholson realized it was not going to be a long-term commitment because of family ties in Las Vegas, but the experience proved to be invaluable.
“That camaraderie of a volunteer environment, it’s impossible to duplicate because you don’t really expect anything but the reward of the experience,” Nicholson says. “It’s different when you pay people, and everybody expects to get paid. I’m not dismissing that. It’s just when you’re doing it as a volunteer, your motivation and the return back is much more emotional, much more of an emotional connection.”
Nicholson says the gaming industry has given her the opportunity to have her own company for 25 years, forge relationships across the world, and “do what I was put on this planet to do, which is to help people build their knowledge and apply that knowledge.”
“AI is not going to take over the management of people,” she adds. “It’s not going to happen.”
Nicholson also is a founding board member and an advisory board member of Global Gaming Women, the non-profit organization. The returns she receives from GGW are heartwarming and empowering.
“It’s being able to see the impact and see, in some cases, literally a transformation of women and men when we do this type of training in other casinos or other hospitality operations,” Nicholson says. ”Just the ability to help people network and discover they’re not alone, and that there are relationships that they can rely on.”
