By David Lillard

At first the new name, “Hollywood,” seemed a stretch. You can dress it up, but Charles Town should go by the familiar Chuck Town to locals. Sure it’s the town the Washingtons built, and even the Colonials loved horse racing.

Two steps into the door, though, this really is Hollywood, not because the giant, curvaceous hi-def video wall plays movie trailers. “Hollywood” comes from the feeling of walking onto a movie set. Or stepping into the movie.

Workers are raising massive stone pillars that seem to hold up the sky as they arch across the high ceiling. Welding torches are aflame. It’s pure fantasy. Forget the actual games for now; this is Cecil B. DeMille erecting pyramids. The craftsmen working in steel and glass crisscross the floor in choreography inspired by Busby Berkeley.

In two weeks, there will be nine table game areas with 85 games, plus a 27-table poker room. Twelve types of games will be played, ranging from classic casino games like roulette and craps to pai gow poker, an Americanized version of the Chinese domino game. Four hundred dealers have been hired to staff the games. According to General Manager Al Britton, 70 percent of these are West Virginia residents and 40 percent are Jefferson Countians.

There are no gaming tables yet. By West Virginia law, Hollywood owners Penn National  can’t bring the tables into the state until they have a license in hand. That won’t be issued until midnight July 1 when, in a Tinsel Town ceremony, Britton hands over a check to the state lottery director. Once given the okay, Britton will make a phone call telling the trucks to roll into the Mountain State.

The movie pans over to a grand room where most of the slots are. In many casinos these rooms are overwhelmed by flashing lights at eye level beneath utter darkness above. Not in this film. Your eyes are drawn upward to the soft glow of a fixture the size of a small moon with a mood to match. You expect to see Hedy Lamarr and Greta Garbo come chatting by as they walk from one set to the other. As if on cue, there’s the sound of ladies laughing as they enter the scene—it’s a group of schoolteachers on a summer outing apparently enjoying both their slots winnings and being in a place where children are absent.

I take a look backstage into Hollywood on the Roof, a party pit still under construction. Even amid the din of cranes and hammers, it evokes Oscar-night parties. Whether any patrons will ever wear a tux or gown here is an open question, but the attire wouldn’t be out of place.

Meet the Dealers

A few floors above I meet the real performers in final rehearsal. These are the dealers.

Unlike the casino floor, the training room is a garden variety gypsum board and fluorescent-light space. Each of the dozen games that will be offered is set up for training and practice. The roulette and craps tables occupy a prominent space. Over at craps, two dealers—regardless of the game, each game’s manager is called a dealer—are discussing some finer point of table management. Along a back wall, dealers are working novelty games, the lower-skilled games you might see at a church-sponsored casino night. Every dealer needs players to practice, so they take turns as players.

At three-card poker, Daniel is dealing. I see familiar faces, people I’ve seen at the supermarket or hardware store over the years. Daniel continues the game through the introductions and banter. When introduced, he gives a nod and a smile, but never takes his eyes off the table. He continues this through four or five hands, allowing his colleagues to answer questions for him, collecting the checks, or tokens, when the house wins, paying out when the player wins. The players describe his every move as if interpreting kabuki poses.

“The checks are stacked according to value and color,” one of them says. Checks are what basement poker players call chips. Each color has a money value, so to color up is to exchange smaller denomination chips for larger denomination chips.

If you were to look at the table from the ceiling, you would know the action (the combined value of all the bets) just by counting the stacks of checks in each color. In fact, security cameras will be positioned above each table in the pit for that very reason.

“I’m loving this,” says Jim, a retired carpenter from Bunker Hill. “I wanted a chance to make a living with my brain instead of my body.” That sentiment resonates with many dealers met that day: “A few months ago, I was commuting 70 miles each way to work,” said a dealer at one table. Another, Pat at the craps table says, “I’ve been an independent homebuilder for 18 years, and I’m getting to an age where I didn’t want to be on a ladder and working in hundred-degree weather.”

As they play at three card poker, the dealer-players continue to teach me the finer points of gaming. Bart, a retired nurse from Bakerton, folds on a hand that looked pretty good to me. “A regular gambler wagers on the possibilities, but a pro bets on the probabilities,” says Jim.

“Ooh, someone’s been reading the training manual,” one of the guys jokes.

Butch chimes in. He’s a former cabinet maker whose work can be seen in local businesses. After a minute, we discover that I know his brother and niece. “The technical elements are only half the dealer’s job. The rest is managing the table. You have to welcome players to the game, teach some of them how to play, answer their questions, and continue the game—all without ever taking your eyes off the table.”

Now I know why Daniel has not been engaging in the banter. He’s managing the table. Navigating the game through this kind of chatter, not to mention constant interruptions from a knucklehead reporter, are all part of his practice. He’s done well.

“If he accidentally drops a check on the floor,” Bart chimes in, “he still can’t take his eyes off the table.” In that case, the dealer calls “Check down!” to his supervisor, in the old days called a pit boss.

“Did you notice how Daniel calculates the payout?” says Butch. He knows the dividend of each hand, and calculates the winnings in his head. “Did you notice that?”

It’s hard not to notice this. It’s automatic. Often at casinos you see players counting their checks after a sizable payout, just to be sure. The dealer unfailingly calculates it correctly.

“The math test here was tough!” says Jim. He’s not joking; there’s a math test.

“Give me a blackjack wager,” says someone. In blackjack, the payout is three to two—150 percent of the bet.

“Give one to Larry. He’s a math savant.” This turns out to be true. There is a blackjack payout chart on the back wall. In the left column is a list of bet amounts, on the right is the corresponding 3 to 2 payout.

“$125,” I call out. “$187.50,” Larry calls back before the words are out of my mouth.

“One eighty fi . . .”

“$277.50,” says Larry. And on it goes.

Over at the craps table, Pat and Jason are getting ready for opening day. Jason became a dealer after working in the Charles Town Racing & Slots accounting department. “I was ready for a change,” he said. It’s the fourth job he’s had at the facility, and he appreciates the ability to move around in the company. Penn National encourages employees to train for new jobs in the company, whether to advance their careers or, like Jason, to keep it fresh. In a partnership with Blue Ridge Tech, college classes and training programs are offered on site.

Hollywood, Not Vegas

There’s a line at the end of the movie Casino, when Ace Rothstein is lamenting how the gaming business has changed since Las Vegas’ rough and tumble days. “. . . the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland.” And it does. Disney is in the movie business, show biz. Hollywood’s business.

Hollywood—the industry—creates short fantasies that captivate audiences for two hours at a time. We pay a little bit, enjoy some refreshments, and escape for a while watching the silver screen. Gaming, these days, is not so different. It’s a special occasion event, like a visit to a big amusement park.

Wandering the floor, hanging with the dealers, talking with people who work in Hollywood—the one in Chuck Town—this film is more G-rated than most people imagine. About the only thing resembling the old Vegas here, again quoting from Casino, is that many of the employees know your name.

Another compelling thing about this film is the script: 96 percent of the patrons come from out of state, and 90 percent of the employees live in West Virginia. People drive into the state, drop a massive pile of money that employs 1,750 people and funds several hundred million dollars in services, then go home. That’s a pretty good ending. Who writes this stuff?