Table Of ContentWhatever Will Help!
A Woman’s Rise to the Top
in the Gaming Industry
As Remembered by Jeanne Hood
Interviewee: Jeanne Hood
Interviewed: 1997, 2005
Published: 2006
Interviewer: Ken Adams
UNOHP Catalog #210
Description
Gaming as a corporate enterprise is relatively new in comparison to most other industries. Nevada legalized gambling
in 1931, and in the fi rst decades, casinos were small by today’s standards. Th ey were normally owned by one or
two people or a limited number of partners, each of whom had to be licensed by the state. Nevada did not legalize
public ownership of casinos until 1967, and it was only then that gaming joined the corporate world. Since then,
the process of “taking gaming public” has moved very quickly.
In 1972, when Jeanne Hood’s husband, Dave, became president of Hyatt in Nevada, Hyatt Corporation was one of
only a handful of licensed gaming corporations in the state. While Hyatt was a pioneer in corporate gaming, it was
not a pioneer in progressive corporate management: like its peers, it had no women in upper management positions
in gaming. Th at changed—not just for Hyatt, but for the industry—when Dave died suddenly in 1977. Hyatt’s
board of directors chose Jeanne Hood as Dave’s replacement, because she was the most qualifi ed person. Jeanne
took over at the Hyatt’s main casino property, the Four Queens in Las Vegas. She had never managed a casino, but
she had, over a fi ft een-year period of time, proven to Hyatt through her involvement in other operations that she
understood business and management.
Nineteen seventy-seven, the year Jeanne assumed her leadership duties, was the beginning of a huge revenue
shift for casinos. Dollar slot machines were set to take over the industry, replacing tables as the most important
and profi table part of a casino and becoming the number-one revenue producer. Th is revenue switch was led by
two kinds of visionaries—a casino operator who understood gamblers and gambling and a businessperson who
understood business. Jeanne Hood was one of the latter, and she helped make the great revenue shift happen.
Jeanne took over the Four Queens when that shift was just beginning, and she adapted to the changes very quickly
and matter-of-factly. She looked at the revenues weekly, and with each increase in revenue from the dollar slots,
she simply added more of them.
Jeanne’s story also illustrates the growth of casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In 1977 casino gaming was legalized
in Atlantic City, and in 1981 the Playboy Casino opened near the Boardwalk. It was a partnership between the
Playboy Corporation and Hyatt (under the latter’s gaming corporation, Elsinore), but by 1985 the property was in
bankruptcy. Once again, when Hyatt was in need of new management, they broke new ground and hired a woman,
Jeanne Hood, to operate the casino, which they had renamed the Atlantis.
Continued on next page.
Description (continued)
Jeanne’s history is also the story of the development of hotel chains in the United States. In the fi rst two decades
aft er World War II, travel in the United States increased dramatically. To accommodate the new traveling public,
thousands of new hotels, motels, and restaurants needed to be built. Jeanne and her husband, Dave, fi rst worked
with Hyatt in developing a chain of sixty lodges and thirty restaurants for the company. Th e lodges were meant to
complement the Hyatt hotel chain, and they catered to the traveling public.
In the traditional casino world, men had ruled. Th e vast majority of gamblers were men; the dealers, cashiers, slot
mechanics, supervisors, and managers were all men; and women had almost no role. In the years aft er the war,
however, as America embarked on its travel binge, women were equal partners in family travel. Th at produced the
same evolution in the casino workplace that it did in other industries, as women slowly began to hold, if not an
equal number of the jobs in a casino, at least a signifi cant portion of them. By 1977 it was possible to have a woman
manage and operate a casino in Nevada.
Th ere is a consistent pattern for male managers: When a man took a new job, he took control. He made changes,
and there are stories of how everyone of note lost their jobs to be replaced by the new manager’s “cronies.” Jeanne’s
approach was exactly the opposite. She waited, watched, and only made changes that were necessary—like the slot
manager who was caught stealing. With most of the rest of the managers and supervisors, she simply worked with
them to develop their skills and horizons instead of replacing them. She took no ego position in any part of the
operation, but focused on fi nancial results and worked tirelessly to improve them.
Jeanne Hood’s style was unique, forward thinking, brave, and successful. Not only did she advance the possibilities
for women in gaming, but through her business background, she also helped advance the gaming industry as a
whole. She brought in accounting and management practices that were common to other industries but not to
gaming, and she helped make them standard in the casino world as well. Jeanne was more than a pioneer woman
in her fi eld—she was a pioneer, a leader, and at times a visionary.
WWWWWhhhhhaaaaattttteeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr WWWWWiiiiillllllllll HHHHHeeeeelllllppppp!!!!!
WWWWWhhhhhaaaaattttteeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr WWWWWiiiiillllllllll HHHHHeeeeelllllppppp!!!!!
AAAAA WWWWWooooommmmmaaaaannnnn’’’’’sssss RRRRRiiiiissssseeeee tttttooooo ttttthhhhheeeee TTTTToooooppppp
iiiiinnnnn ttttthhhhheeeee GGGGGaaaaammmmmiiiiinnnnnggggg IIIIInnnnnddddduuuuussssstttttrrrrryyyyy
As Remembered by Jeanne Hood
From oral history interviews by Ken Adams
Edited by Mary Larson
University of Nevada Oral History Program
Copyright 2006
University of Nevada Oral History Program
Mail Stop 0324
Reno, Nevada 89557
[email protected]
http://www.unr.edu/oralhistory
All rights reserved. Published 2006.
Printed in the United States of America
Photographs courtesy of Jeanne Hood.
Publication Staff :
Director: R.T. King
Assistant Director: Mary Larson
Production Manager: Kathleen Coles
Production Assistants: Linda Sommer, Allison Tracy, and Kathryn Wright-Ross
University of Nevada Oral History Program Use Policy
All UNOHP interviews are copyrighted materials. Th ey may be downloaded and/or
printed for personal reference and educational use, but not republished or sold. Under
“fair use” standards, excerpts of up to 1000 words may be quoted for publication without
UNOHP permission as long as the use is non-commercial and materials are properly
cited. Th e citation should include the title of the work, the name of the person or
people interviewed, the date of publication or production, and the fact that the work
was published or produced by the University of Nevada Oral History Program (and
collaborating institutions, when applicable). Requests for permission to quote for other
publication, or to use any photos found within the transcripts, should be addressed
to the UNOHP, Mail Stop 0324, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV 89557-0324.
Original recordings of most UNOHP interviews are available for research purposes
upon request.
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction ix
1. Childhood 1
2. College, Yellowstone, and Dave 17
3. Th e Garden of Allah and the Chase House 31
4. Hyatt Lodges 45
5. Las Vegas and the Four Queens 79
6. Taking Over the Business 95
7. Hyatt, Elsinore, and Playboy 129
8. Las Vegas Unions 147
9. Marketing and Entertainment 155
10. Th e Team at the Four Queens 181
11. Licensing and Chapter 11 in Atlantic City 199
vi Contents
12. Digging Out at the Atlantis 233
13. Back in Las Vegas 261
14. Slots 277
15. Management Changes 289
16. Th e Fremont Street Experience 303
17. Leaving the Four Queens 321
18. Epilogue 337
Index 341
P
REFACE
Founded in 1964, the University of Nevada and topical organization not always found
Oral History Program (UNOHP) records and in the raw transcript. Ms. Hood has
collects interviews that address significant thoroughly reviewed the work and affirms
topics in Nevada’s remembered past. The that it is an accurate interpretation. Readers
program’s chroniclers are primary sources: who desire access to the unaltered oral
people who participated in or directly history are invited to visit the offices of the
witnessed the events and phenomena that UNOHP, where the tapes of the interviews
are the subjects of the interviews. Following may be heard by appointment.
precedent established by Allan Nevins at To add context to written representations
Columbia University in 1948, and of the spoken word, the UNOHP uses certain
perpetuated since by academic programs editorial conventions. Laughter is
such as ours, these recorded interviews and represented with [laughter] at the end of a
their transcripts are called oral histories. sentence in which it occurs; and ellipses are
This research volume is crafted from the used, not to indicate that material has been
verbatim transcript of interviews conducted deleted, but to indicate that a statement has
by Ken Adams with Jeanne Hood. The bulk been interrupted or is incomplete . . . or there
of the recording sessions took place in Las is a pause for dramatic effect.
Vegas, between March and July of 1997, but As with all of our oral histories, while we
a follow-up interview was conducted in can vouch for the authenticity of Jeanne
August of 2005, in order to bring Ms. Hood’s Hood’s oral history, we advise the reader to
story up to the present day. Remaining keep in mind that it is a personal account of
faithful to the transcript’s content, and a remembered past, and we do not claim that
adhering as closely as possible to Ms. Hood’s it is entirely free of error. Intelligent readers
spoken words, the manuscript was edited for will approach it with the same anticipation
clarity. The editor also gave it chronological of discovery, tempered with caution, that
viii PREFACE
they would bring to government reports,
diaries, newspaper stories, and other inter-
pretations of historical information.
UNOHP
April 2006
