“I will purposefully look for those diverse-based hires,” revealed Albie Velarde, the Director of Casino Marketing at MGM Springfield, to an undercover OMG Journalist. Velarde admitted, “I’d probably hire the African American,” openly favoring candidates based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles while excluding white applicants from hiring considerations.
Velarde also revealed that MGM tracks workforce composition closely, with HR providing monthly summaries of gender and racial turnover. He stated, “At a [MGM] property level, HR sends us, every month when they send us our turnover summary of the month, they’ll point out this month we lost this amount of females versus males.” According to him, these reports influence hiring decisions. “Hey guys, we’re losing all of our female workforce. Let’s try, you know, let’s put more females through the pipeline,” he recounted, explaining how HR directs hiring managers to focus on specific demographics.
He also described a hiring approach where employees are replaced with candidates of the same race or gender. “So like if I lose one of my female hosts, I would try to replace her with a female,” he admitted. “Selena, she’s my Vietnamese host, she’s very reserved, she’s very quiet. But that’s her culture,” adding, “I would replace her with somebody who is, in some capacity, that culture.”
OMG has reached out to MGM for comment on Velarde’s revelations that the company has implemented discriminatory hiring practices, and to clarify whether its DEI policies are being enforced in a way that upholds equal opportunity for all applicants.
In response to these revelations, MGM Resorts International issued a statement to OMG asserting that Velarde’s comments “do not reflect the company’s policies or practices.”
