Violated FLSA rules
Pennsylvania’s Mount Airy Casino Resort has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by two ex-table game dealers. A total of 696 current and former casino employees are eligible for a share of at least $1,474,000. The entire settlement was for $2.3 million; the difference will go to lawyers, settlement administration, and other expenses.
Former dealers Jennifer Mak and William Neidig filed the lawsuit in February 2025, accusing the casino of a number of employee compensation violations. Of primary concern was Mount Airy taking a tip credit without notifying employees while it tipped employees sub-minimum wage.
It’s a bit of a confusing topic, so we’ll do our best to explain it. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers are allowed to pay employees who regularly receive more than $30 per month in tips a “sub-minimum wage” of $2.13 per hour. If the employee’s tips plus wages don’t add up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (states with higher minimum wage may have different laws), the employer must make up the difference.
Employees must provide a detailed breakdown to employees of the tip credit math, something the lawsuit claims Mount Airy did not do.
“The failure to give tip credit notice gives rise to both unpaid minimum wages and overtime wages,” the suit states.
Can’t pool tips with everyone
Additionally, the lawsuit argued that Mount Airy required dealers to not only pool their tips with other dealers, but also with non-tipped management and supervisors who occasionally filled in as dealers. Those employees earned much higher wages than did employees whose only job was dealing table games.
According to the Department of Labor, “all tips received by the tipped employee are to be retained by the employee except for a valid tip pooling arrangement limited to employees who customarily and regularly receive tips.”
The lawsuit also accused Mount Airy of improperly rounding employees’ clock-in and clock-out times, resulting in the shorting of wages, and miscalculating regular pay for overtime purposes.
The suit originally estimated that at least 100 current and former employees were affected, but by the time settlement negotiations started, over 150 people had joined the class-action.
No eligible employee will receive less than $100 in the settlement, with the average payout estimated at more than $2,000. Employees must have worked at Mount Airy between February 7, 2022, and May 8, 2025.
Image credit: Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash
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