Faces of Gaming: Alex Alvarado — Vice President, Casino Operations at MGM National Harbor and Casino Aficionado

Saturday, September 7, 2024 11:48 AM
  • Commercial Casinos
  • Tom Osiecki — CDC Gaming and Raving Partner

Alex Alvarado has a 20-year career in gaming where he is recognized as one of the emerging leaders in the casino industry.

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Alvarado spent his late childhood in Las Vegas, yet never saw himself in the casino industry. Today, if you look at his LinkedIn profile, Alvarado refers to himself as a Casino Aficionado. Alvarado credits his drive and love for all-things-casino to the amazing intricacies of the gaming industry.

Alexander (Alex) Alvarado is Vice President of Casino Operations at MGM National Harbor. In his role, Alex leads all casino operations, including oversight of slots, table games, and poker for the resort, which is one of the highest-grossing commercial casinos outside of Las Vegas.

Alvarado oversees 2,500 slot machines, 160 tables games, 45 poker tables, and has an 1,600-employee workforce on the casino side.

Alex was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and his family moved to Guatemala when he was 12 years old. He later relocated to Nevada and started his career with MGM Resorts in 2005 at MGM Grand. He continued his career with MGM Resorts in a number of operations, analytics, and marketing roles in both Tunica, Mississippi, and Las Vegas before ultimately landing at MGM National Harbor in 2015, where he worked to open the $1.4 billion resort casino.

Alex was recognized in Emerging Leaders of Gaming’s ‘40 under 40’ list. In 2020, he was listed as one of the 25 people to watch by Global Gaming Business. He is a regular speaker and contributor to the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) and a proponent of the advancement of technologies in the casino space.

Spanglish
Alvarado partially credits his Hispanic upbringing for his family-oriented approach to helping his employees grow and prosper in the casino industry.

“I was actually born and initially raised in Brooklyn, New York. At 12 years old, we moved to Guatemala, literally with no notice. My sister and I were kind of told the day before. This time it’s not a vacation, we’re moving.

“So, it was kind of a lot at once. I went from being an A student to being a D student in everything but math. Even though English is my second language, I was now speaking more Spanglish than Spanish.

“Thank goodness I have an aunt who is a language teacher. She taught my sister and I how to speak Spanish properly, as well read it and write it. It was a complete culture shock. I traded a football and bike for a soccer ball and dirt bikes.

“It was different than the way I grew up. The same was true for my parents. It was just a huge adjustment for my dad and that’s what ultimately brought us back to the States,” Alvarado recalled.

I asked Alvarado if growing up in the Hispanic culture had an effect on his leadership style as he progressed through the casino industry.

“It has a huge impact. I think, first of all, you can relate to people that come from a diverse place. I was raised very much family-centric. I grew up watching how my grandparents and parents conducted themselves; how they treated others and conducted themselves. That’s always stayed with me and now translates to how I go about my personal and professional life. I have four children of my own and that’s kind of the center of my life – but it also exudes to the people that I work with.

“I care a lot about people and helping them achieve their max potential. So, it has that effect. I think it’s not a secret, Hispanic Americans and Hispanics in general have quite the work ethic. That was instilled in me at a very early age. You worked for everything. You weren’t entitled to anything. So that’s been impressed upon me,” Avarado said.

Green monster
After moving from Guatemala to Las Vegas, Alvarado had no inclination that he would one day end up in the casino industry.

“Absolutely not. Not at all. And then, next thing, I was in school for information technology. The gaming thing is almost accidental.

“My mom worked at the Monte Carlo. We lived on the east side of Las Vegas, and I would often pick her up and sometimes my sister Carolyn would ride with me. I’ll never forget, I would always take Tropicana because in those days there was less traffic on that side of town. When you pass Paradise on Tropicana, you can see the MGM Grand, or the ‘big green monster’ as we call it.

“I remember my sister once saying to me, ‘Can you imagine running one of those places?’ I must have been maybe 16 years old, and I immediately said absolutely not. Then you blink and it’s just incredible because I very well may run that place one day,” Alvarado exclaimed.

Ticket redemption
“I had an opportunity to join a company called NRT, which would go on to commercialize the ticket redemption unit and literally revolutionize the industry.

“My work became getting that technology approved throughout different jurisdictions around the United States and outside of the country, and then eventually the integration, the training of the product. I helped sell the product and continue to kind of develop that product. As larger operators started to integrate the technology, the idea of moving to the operator’s side started to become a reality,” Alvarado stated.

All in or not
“I had an opportunity in 2005 to join MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I started on the slot service side, so it was really front of the house taking care of customers, paying jackpots and making sure our team had the tools to do their job.

“Then next thing you know, I was befriending the cage managers, the auditors, and I was working the cage. I was following the drop teams and so I was really understanding every aspect of the business. That’s generally the way I am. I’m either completely interested, or not interested at all. So, when I joined this business, I realized how much I didn’t know and my approach became to fill in the gaps.”

Alvarado joined Aristocrat on the database and software side. This led to a second opportunity at MGM in a marketing analytics role where he eventually went to The Mirage and ran the rewards desk, host team and special events.

“Right around that time, my wife and I had our first child and a couple of opportunities cropped up. I ultimately took the plunge, and we literally relocated our very young family to Miami, where I took my first department head role. It was an opening of a small racino attached to a Jai Alai fronton. We installed about 1,400 slot machines at the time in an environment where it really didn’t have casino talent and not much of a casino workforce.

“That set the stage for a lot of growth. You get used to speaking casino and you realize you’re the only one that does. Very quickly you realize you’re going to have to dig in a little deeper. But that was a lot of fun,” Alvarado recalled.

Alvarado moved to the Caribbean for a short time to help optimize and expand the footprint of a slot lounge operator. Back in the states, he met one of his mentors, Bill Florence, and joined Penn Gaming in Charlestown, West Virginia to redo the entire casino floor with a casino optimization strategy.

MGM calls again
“One day I got a call from my friend Mike Gatten with MGM Resorts and got an opportunity to come back to the company. He knew that my interest was ultimately to open the quickly incoming MGM National Harbor. I believed at the time that I would be best suited to be an insider and so that was my move.

“I joined the company this time in the Memphis area in Tunica at Goldstrike and it was a similar mission. That casino had great bones, but it wasn’t reaching its full potential. So, I was part of a group of people that turned that facility into a market leader.

“The company started to tap me to work on global gaming development projects, potential acquisitions, and new builds, including National Harbor at the time. In 2015, my family and I moved here to National Harbor and my responsibilities have grown from pure slots to the entire casino,” Alvarado stated.

Starting up MGM National Harbor
“I opened facilities before, but nothing at this level of scale. I was going through that process and making recommendations, ultimately to deploy roughly $100 million worth of capital between slot machines, systems, and furniture.

“Presenting to the CEO and to our board and navigating that audience, learning how to speak in their language and deliver messages succintly. You can imagine the criticality of that information. Being in that moment, and operating at that level, is something that I’ll take with me forever. Assembling the project plan. It was something like 100,000 lines of tasks that we needed to complete, down to the most minute detail to get this place opened.

“We needed 4,000 employees for the opening, and we had something like 40,000 applications. Going through that process, taking delivery of the first slot machine, watching the walls go up and the camaraderie. We currently have about 3,200 team members and about 1,100 of those folks are Day One employees. It has  been a tremendous, tremendous experience,” Alvarado recounted.

The slot machine draft
For the opening of MGM National Harbor, Alvarado created a slot machine draft to select locations of slot machines between seven vendors.

“I came up with the draft concept years before that. I just thought, there’s this ongoing debate with suppliers about placement. It’s like this product doesn’t work and the rebuttal is, ‘Well you have me in a “C” location.’

“I just thought, what if we let them pick their locations? But to create parity, you would have to create some rules. To that end, I created what I called the 10 Commandments of the Slot Draft.

“And that included that I reserve the right to rebut or remove and make modifications as necessary. I really put the onus on them to account for things like sightlines and height. I created the order that I had the suppliers going in reverse of their footprint. So, the smaller suppliers got to go first.

“I pre-placed all the premium or lease games, I pre-placed all the video poker products, I pre-placed all of the tournament product. I remember mentioning it to my boss at the time and he said, ‘You’re either a genius or an idiot.’

“About a month out, I sent them the rules. Two weeks out, I sent them the floor layout. The morning of the draft, we were still an active construction site. I had a hardhat tour; and I mean, it was incredible. Most suppliers sent a contingent of people out for the draft. I’ll tell you, these guys showed up with full-size laminated maps.

“I bought out a private dining room to conduct the draft at a sports bar here in National Harbor. They came in, and there were maps on the walls. I had a tech manager on a spreadsheet, and I had an emcee. It was a tremendous, tremendous process and a lot of fun.

“There was an open bar, and these guys were so stressed out I don’t think a single one of them had a single drink. It was a complete role reversal. I will tell you, if I had to go back and do it all over again, I would do the exactly the same thing. It was incredible,” Alvarado exclaimed.

Tech advocate
Alvarado is an advocate for increasing the application of next-level technology in the casino industry.

“We know generally that all businesses have to evolve; so, let’s just start with that. We’re not immune to that and if we choose to resist it’s probably not going to be good for us. Because what will happen is, if we don’t digitize and if we don’t embrace these things, somebody else will and it’ll just be done to us.

“For brick and mortar or land-based operators you have another element, which is that the workforce is evolving. They’re aging up, they’re aging out. You have a new workforce that doesn’t necessarily have a hospitality background or interest in pursuing one; and generally, it’s almost like there’s a lot less commitment to the workplace.

“I think a huge part of it is we’ve really got to be focused on technologies that can automate, replicate and just simplify these jobs. That will enable this workforce that’s wired differently to really focus on what customers are feeling and experiencing.

“A great example is the dealer workforce. You’re going to have a huge exodus of dealers here in the next three, four years and it’s starting to happen now. That’s going to put a lot of pressure on games operators to backfill those groups of people, and those jobs are not easy. They’re not for everyone. A lot of folks have stage fright. A lot of folks, frankly, can’t count and do not have an interest. What do you do to overcome that?

“Simultaneously, as your teams are aging up and out, so is your customer base. I’m your customer now. I’m who you want. The good news is we’re ready to embrace some amount of technology. In many ways, part of the reason that the industry doesn’t capture even more of that group is because it’s not as digitally friendly as it should be.

“The fact that you don’t have things like Apple Pay on the table games is telling them that you’re not interested in their business. I think the industry is completely missing that 100% across the board right now.

“Mobile gaming, mobile sports are certainly here, and VR / AR gaming is going to continue to grow. We are proponents of that. In many ways, it’s become another alternative for this new cohort of consumers,” Alvarado said.

Mobile journey
Alvarado sees a future in the next 10 years when an omni channel approach blends mobile with land-based operations.

“One of the opportunities with mobile that we really should look at is this idea of a journey that goes from mobile to land based. Just imagine that  you can only unlock certain features if you get so far on the mobile device, so I can only play a certain part of the land base game if I get so far on a mobile device. Or vice versa. That could really stimulate a lot of growth and cross pollination,” Alvarado stated.

All in
I asked Alvarado what he thinks led him to success in the gaming industry.

“If at any point in time I’m not 100% in, I will self-select out. I often call them projects, challenges, opportunities, whatever roles that I’ve ever had.  When my impact on a role has run its course it’s time to go. Basically, once I’ve taken something to a point where I can hand it off. In almost every case, I have put in a succession plan, and it’s just time for me to take the next challenge.

“That’s kind of it for me. It’s about being all in. I think, at the core, it really boils down to I have found what I love. I love the business. I love the industry and the energy of it, I get a kick out of the fact that people come to my place to have fun. I love the pressure and the standard that we operate at, particularly in this facility and the volumes that we do. But more than anything to me it’s about the people that I work with,” Alvarado declared.

100% commitment
Alex Alvarado’s 20-year career benefits from an ability to focus and a dedication to helping people who work with him grow. His family-centric approach and advocacy for high tech has earned him recognition in the gaming industry; and I almost forget to mention, he is also a professional Salsa dancer.

Entries in the Faces of Gaming series:

Tom Osiecki is a casino consultant who writes an occasional column for CDC Gaming called Faces of Gaming, about interesting and engaging people in the gaming industry.

Tom Osiecki is a marketing and management consultant for Raving Consulting and can be reached for consulting engagements at 775-329-7864.

If you know of a fascinating personality in the gaming industry you would like to see profiled, please send Tom Osiecki an email at tosiecki@cdcgaming.com