Golden Nugget Atlantic City Dealers Sue Over Tip Pool, Unpaid Work Claims
Atlantic City dealers sued Golden Nugget over a mandatory tip pool, alleging they counted tips off the clock and had rest breaks paid under a tip credit.
Table game dealers at Golden Nugget Atlantic City filed a federal wage-and-hour class action against the casino on March 13, alleging the property ran an unlawful mandatory tip pool and forced dealers to count their tips while off the clock, a practice the suit characterizes as unpaid work.
The case, Albanese v. Golden Nugget Atlantic City, LLC (1:26-cv-02607), landed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and was assigned to Judge Edward S. Kiel. Law firm Winebrake & Santillo represents the plaintiff, identified in court records only as Albanese.
Beyond the tip pool challenge, the complaint raises a second distinct allegation: that the casino paid dealers for rest breaks using a tip credit, rather than their full wage rate. That practice, if proven, would mean the casino leaned on dealers' own gratuities to cover a labor cost that federal and state wage law may require the employer to absorb directly.
Both allegations cut at compensation structures that are routine but legally contested in the casino and hospitality industries. The mandatory tip pool claim questions whether Golden Nugget's pooling arrangement met the conditions required under federal and state wage law. The off-the-clock tip-counting claim adds an hours-worked angle: time spent tallying tips after a shift ends is unpaid time, the plaintiff argues, and it should have been compensated.
The suit is classified as multi-party litigation, signaling the plaintiff's intent to pursue relief on behalf of a broader class of Golden Nugget dealers, not just Albanese individually. The nature-of-suit designation in the federal docket is "Labor: Fair Standards," consistent with a Fair Labor Standards Act framework, though the specific statutory counts were not detailed in records available at the time of this report.
Golden Nugget Atlantic City has not issued a public response to the complaint. The case remains in its early stages, with no motions or scheduling orders yet reflected in publicly available docket records.
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