Amber Allan grew up in West Virginia and moved to Las Vegas at the age of 16. She entered the gaming industry in 2000 as a change person at Arizona Charlie’s Boulder where she later held the positions of floorperson and assistant shift manager. Allan would eventually move to Santa Fe Station in 2005 as relief shift manager, later to the Texas Station as a shift manager, and then to Palace Station in 2008 into the slot operations and technical manager role. She then returned to Texas Station at the end of 2008 as director of slot operations and then moved to Aliante Station into the same role in 2009. Allan started at Konami Gaming, Inc. in 2012 where she has worked as an analyst, product specialist, and, currently, as technical sales executive. The interview with Allan begins with her discussion of moving to Las Vegas and the experiences and roles she held as she started in the gaming industry. She discusses the various responsibilities she had in those roles, the types of skills required for them, and the kinds of disputes that are handled in certain supervisory positions. Allan also mentions and discusses the topic of hold percentage as it relates to slot and video poker players. She later describes her philosophy on what makes a good slot floor and also what customers are looking for in slots. Allan then provides the details of her move to the manufacturing side of the slot industry, and she gives her thoughts on what makes both a good and bad slot manager. The interview then shifts to the discussion of free slot play; ticket-in, ticket-out; changes in slot management; and the future of slot machines. The interview concludes with Allan’s discussion of her personal gambling as well as her advice for young people who want to go into the slot industry.
Paulette R. Nelson's life in Las Vegas is a contrast of images. She recalls riding her horse across the wide-open desert, as well as embracing the technological changes that rapidly impacted the UNLV library. Paulette honed her life skills as farm girl growing up just south of Mandan, North Dakota. She attended North Dakota State University. A post-graduation summer as a volunteer in Kenya, sparked an interest in adventure and travel and she enlisted for four years in the U.S. Air Force. Rather than enter as an officer, she opted to be enlisted personnel so that she could receive technical training. In 1981, Paulette migrated to Las Vegas, where she had friends at Nellis Air Force Base. She worked at the Nevada Test Site for the next two years. Then, while looking for a new job so that she could pursue an engineering degree, she was offered a position in the UNLV library cataloging department. It was a career path change that she never regretted. She eventually became the Supervisor of the Architecture Studies Library; a position she held for nine years until her retirement Among the highlights of her career was being involved in the change to an electronic catalog system and being on the planning committee for Lied Library.