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INDIANA CASINO DEALERS ARE BRINGING BACK THE RECOGNITION STRIKE  
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Alexandra Bradbury
November 10, 2025
Labor Notes
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_ As of October 17, the dealers at the Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino
in Shelbyville, Indiana, were on strike for union recognition. “It
was one of the most beautiful moments of human solidarity I’ve ever
had the pleasure of being part of.” _

Ninety years ago, this was the main way to unionize. "Everyone keeps
asking if we're scared," said striking casino dealer Tera Arnold.
"I’ve never been so not scared of anything in my life. I feel
powerful.", Teamsters Local 135

 

There are no clocks in a casino, so the dealers all set their phone
alarms for noon. Everyone was a bundle of nerves. Before work, a
couple of people threw up.

But when the cacophony of alarms sounded, everyone lifted their hands
in the air, slammed down the lids on their games of baccarat,
blackjack, craps, and roulette, and announced they were on strike.
“It was more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt in my life,”
said dealer Tera Arnold. “I had goosebumps head to toe.”

The other dealers were waiting outside. When the strikers began
streaming out the doors and moving their cars out of the employee
parking lot, “the sheer amount of joy, raw energy, seeing my
colleagues from all walks of life pull around that corner, hands out
the windows—everybody lost their mind,” said dealer Dakota
Massman. “It was one of the most beautiful moments of human
solidarity I’ve ever had the pleasure of being part of.”

As of October 17, the dealers at the Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino in
Shelbyville, Indiana, were on strike for union recognition.

THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

It's a rare, courageous, throwback tactic. Ninety years ago this was
the main way unions were formed.

But ever since the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, another option
has become the norm: If the employer doesn’t acknowledge your
majority support on union cards, you file for a government-supervised
election to prove your majority a second time. You grit your teeth
through weeks of anti-union pressure, win the vote, and the government
orders your boss to get with the program.

That's how the 200 dealers at the Horseshoe Casino, part of the
Caesars chain, had planned to do it. They marched on their boss in
September with proof of super-majority support to join Teamsters Local
135. They got an election date, October 17. Caesars brought in the
union-busting firm Littler Mendelson, but the dealers stuck
together—in fact, the propaganda blitz backfired and more workers
signed cards.

Then on October 1, the federal government shut down. The election was
postponed indefinitely.

The union proposed to bring in a neutral party to conduct the vote;
the boss wasn’t interested. So Local 135 leaders talked with the
casino workers about their options. They could wait in limbo while the
company honed its anti-union talking points and diluted the unit with
new hires. Or they could take a big risk and do it the old-fashioned
way. The workers voted by 92 percent to go for it.

“Everybody keeps asking if we’re scared of losing our jobs,”
Arnold said. “I’ve never been so not scared of anything in my
life. I feel so powerful, so strong. We’re finally united.”

“Everybody is out here yelling, screaming, stopping traffic,”
Massman said. “We’ve been quiet in there for years because we were
afraid we were going to lose our jobs. They can fire you for anything.
They can cook up something about a hundred-dollar variance and they
don’t have to prove it. Out here I don’t have that fear
anymore.”

ABYSMAL WAGES

A top complaint is the abysmal pay. Dealer wages are $5-$7 an hour.
The rest of their earnings are tips, pooled and divided based on hours
each day.

The wage is so low that management has an incentive to over-staff even
during slow times. If opening a dozen more tables for an hour causes
one customer to lose an extra $100, the casino makes a profit—but
the tips are thinner, spread among more dealers.

“We went from 120 dealers to 200 dealers,” Massman said.
“Essentially they over-saturated our workforce. Paychecks are down
almost $1,000 a month. That’s rent. That’s your car bill.”

Making matters worse: Workers taking paid time off on a given day are
counted in the tip pool—so your co-workers pay for your PTO. And
“dual rate” dealers like Arnold work some days as floor leads for
$23-$25 an hour but no tips, which depending on your schedule can mean
you get the worst of both worlds.

Then there are the working conditions. Arnold first started thinking
about organizing on a day when the gas leaked, a water pipe burst, the
casino flooded, the heat went off, the temperature fell to 37 degrees,
and yet dealers were required to keep working—wearing hats and
gloves, sloshing through flood water. It was Christmas morning, 2022.

“Other departments represented by unions were able to leave,” she
said. “They told us that if we left we would get job abandonment and
insubordination.”

Meanwhile Horseshoe is raking in a million dollars a day, Massman
said. “It’s public information, you can verify every number. They
really are printing money.”

SCARCE FOOD, SCARCE GAMBLERS

A large majority of dealers and dual-rates are on strike, covering all
three entrances, picketing round the clock on their regular work
shifts. After three weeks, only a few have gone back in—and some who
weren’t striking at first have walked out. They’ve handed out
thousands of leaflets.

Strike pay helps make this possible. The dealers are getting the
enhanced rate of $1,000 a week, which the Teamsters international has
been granting to strikers “all over the country for the last
year,” Local 135 President Dustin Roach said. “That’s why
we’ve been taking on so many fights, and winning so many fights.”

The Teamsters constitution sets strike pay much lower—five times
monthly dues for members, and $150 for newly organizing workers—but
it also allows the international executive board to approve any strike
benefits it considers in the union’s best interests. Roach said the
executive board has been approving every request for the enhanced pay,
and encouraging locals to publicize it to strengthen their strike
threats.

The casino is still operating, but the strike has turned many
customers away. Some are sympathetic—dealers get to know their
regulars pretty well—including a couple of players for the
Indianapolis Colts. A retired postal union member burned his Diamond
Elite Caesars club card before a cheering crowd.

Conditions inside are miserable. Teamsters at Sysco, Pepsi, Kroger,
UPS, and Quickway are refusing to cross the picket line. “A business
can’t run without truckers,” Arnold said. “They need food and
alcohol, and they’re not getting it.” The vending machines are
empty; cards and dice aren’t being delivered; the elevator goes
unrepaired. The casino rented a box truck to make its own pickups, but
the truck isn’t refrigerated, so food is going bad.

THE RIGHT TO HONOR PICKET LINES

On the other hand, all the members of existing unions at the casino
are crossing the picket line—even the slot machine attendants, who
are in the same union, Teamsters Local 135. Their contracts lack
picket line protection language. “They’re so sad,” Arnold says.
“They hate crossing that line. Every time they drive by they’re
honking and waving.”

Once a manager brought hand warmers out to her striking husband.
“She walked back in and they fired her,” Arnold said.

For the strikers, the experience has driven home the importance of
winning the right to honor picket lines in their future contract.

“If you get a couple units in cahoots, you could shut this whole
place down,” Massman said. “Whenever contracts are up for other
departments, you can bet your bottom dollar we’re going to go out so
that they can get paid more, whether it’s jockeys, environmental
services, cashiers.”

CAESARS BLEEDS MONEY

The dealers are the largest unit in the casino, and not easy to
replace. Dealers need weeks of training in each game, plus licensing
and a background check. “They don’t have the bodies in there to
keep it going,” Arnold said.

The casino has brought workers over from the poker department, plus
managers from the Caesars casino in Anderson, Indiana. Arnold and
Massman drove up to talk with the dealers there. They found out what
scabs are getting paid: $45 an hour, plus a $50 gas card every trip.

Management must realize that bargaining won’t be cheap with these
workers who have learned not to fear a strike.

Arnold, who has lived in Shelbyville for 15 years, was part of a
community fight to keep the casino from opening in the first place.
“The majority didn’t want the poverty, the corruption to the
community,” she said. “We all fought against it.”

Eventually she, her son, and her daughter all ended up as casino
workers. “What’s eating me alive is we fought so hard to not have
this happen to our community,” she said. “This is what we were
scared was going to happen. Open your eyes, Shelby County, it’s
happening.”

‘NEVER BEEN MORE PROUD’

The Horseshoe Casino is Shelbyville’s biggest private employer,
accustomed to throwing money around and getting its way. It claims a
section of Michigan Road, a major local thoroughfare, is its private
property. The union disputes this. But in the third week, the city
sent cops out to tear down the union canopies, smash up supplies, and
threaten everyone with arrest.

The strikers trooped across to the definitely-public side of Michigan
Road while Local 135 President Dustin Roach—who won leadership of
the 14,000-member local three years ago on a reform slate
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arrest, picketing solo for hours on the disputed sidewalk. They never
did arrest him, and 120 strikers packed a city council meeting that
night.

Spirits are high. “I’ve never been more proud of myself and the
people around me,” Massman said. “This is how the working class
needs to come together. It feels really good to fight for others.
It’s something I want to look more into with my life.”

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Alexandra Bradbury [[link removed]] is the
editor of Labor [email protected]

* Indiana Casino Dealers; Recognition Strikes; Teamsters;
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