Casinos in Cripple Creek, Colorado are struggling to find workers to run their operations and it’s slowing down their recovery in a major way. Local casino operators are offering everything from cheap bus tickets to cold, hard cash in an effort to fill those empty positions.

Located in Teller County, about 120 miles from Denver, tiny Cripple Creek is a former gold mining town turned gambling stop with several casinos. Though Teller County is experiencing a nearly six percent unemployment rate, local operators simply can’t find enough workers to fully staff their reopened casinos. Now the State of Colorado is stepping in with an incentive program called Jump Start Colorado. Jump Start offers returning employees a $1200 bonus when they return to work and local gambling operators are throwing another $1400 into the pot. But will that be enough to draw workers to Cripple Creek?

Erica Ferris, Director of marketing for Monarch Casino Resort Spa Black Hawk, which is only about 40 miles from Denver has struggled to find an answer for the labor crunch. She expounded on her thoughts in an interview with CBS 4 saying, “I really thought for a while that this is really about vaccinations. About getting in and getting your vaccinations so that you feel comfortable working in an environment where there are a large number of people and so we’re hoping everyone is going out, getting that vaccine so that they feel comfortable to come back to work and to help us have this amazing experience in our brand-new environment for our guests.”

As of June 1, 500 workers had elected to take the JumpStart bonus offer.

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