Station Casinos Gives Nearly 10,000 Workers Stakes Worth More Than $70 Million
Workers receive publicly traded shares for every completed year at Station Casinos
LAS VEGAS — Nearly 10,000 frontline, hourly, and salaried employees across Station Casinos received Class A common shares from Red Rock Resorts Inc. as the company marked a 50-year operational milestone. The distribution amounted to more than $70 million in company equity.
The awards went to eligible full-time and part-time workers who were active on payroll as of the announcement date. Employees across operational departments, including table game dealers, food service workers, maintenance personnel, and property management staff, were covered.
Formal share claims opened on a Monday after an unannounced corporate address at a company property. Station Casinos parent company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frank Fertitta III and Vice Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta presented the compensation package to an assembled ballroom of workers.
Under the formula, each eligible employee received $1,000 worth of publicly traded shares for every full year of completed employment. Ida Johnson, who was hired in 1977, received $49,000 in equity. Six other active employees who joined the company during the late 1970s each received stock allocations exceeding $45,000.
“When you walk out of here today, we want you to walk out differently than you walked in—not just as someone who works at Station Casinos, but as someone who owns a piece of it,” Lorenzo Fertitta said during the presentation. “Every guest you take care of, every shift you show up for—this is now your company too.”
Station Casinos traces its corporate lineage to 1959, when company founder Frank Fertitta Jr. moved from Galveston, Texas, to Las Vegas. In 1976, Fertitta Jr. launched an independent gaming venue originally named “The Casino.” The 5,000-square-foot facility stood next to Interstate 15 on Sahara Avenue and opened with 90 staff members, 100 slot machines, and six table games.
The original venue was designed to serve local residents rather than tourists on the Las Vegas Strip. It became Bingo Palace in 1977, the same year Ida Johnson joined the company, and underwent a comprehensive expansion and rebranding as Palace Station in 1984.
“From the very beginning, our dad knew it was the team members and the relationships with our guests that was the most important part of the casino business,” Frank Fertitta III said in an interview with Fortune.
Over the following decades, the company built a regional network across Southern Nevada. Red Rock Resorts now has 14 gaming and entertainment destinations throughout the Las Vegas Valley, including Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Summerlin, Green Valley Ranch Resort Spa Casino in Henderson, the newly constructed Durango Casino & Resort in southwest Las Vegas, and several localized Wildfire gaming venues.
“Our father founded this company on a few simple principles: serve the local community, deliver great value, and most importantly, take care of our team members,” Fertitta III told employees. “This award reflects those values and recognizes the people who have brought them to life every day for the past 50 years.”
Broad-based equity awards of this scale have historically remained uncommon in the hospitality and gaming sectors. Several major corporations in other industries have used non-executive equity distributions in recent years.
After federal corporate tax reductions were enacted under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Apple Inc. issued $2,500 restricted stock bonuses to the majority of its global workforce. Bank of America created an ongoing $1 billion restricted-stock pool for roughly 95% of its international staff, while Samsung instituted stock distributions worth up to $20,000 for non-executive personnel.
In the private industrial sector, the family owners of Louisiana-based modular equipment manufacturer Fibrebond Corp. distributed a $240 million cash bonus pool among their workforce when the firm was sold. The average distribution was $443,000 per employee.
Closing the event, Fertitta III added: “Thank you for making the last 50 years possible, and we look forward to what we can accomplish together over the next 50 years. Thank you for taking care of one another. Thank you for taking care of our guests and thank you for making Station Casinos the local favorite.”
