Gaming Education and Proximity Considerations
As planners delve into the details of subject matter and courses, decisions must be made regarding the exact nature of the gaming curriculum.
Should it prepare students for careers in specific segments of the gaming industry? Or should the preparation be more general?
This may depend upon the gaming labor market to be addressed, national or local. Some programs may direct their program toward a nationwide gaming preparation, not specific to any particular environment or jurisdiction.
Others may recognize and be instrumental in preparing a workforce for a specific gaming job market, typically one in local, state, or nearby gaming jurisdictions.
A program within or near a jurisdiction that permits pari-mutuel betting and charitable gaming but disallows casino gaming, might offer course content specific to those gaming activities and operations.
In contrast, the gaming curriculum for a program embedded in and /or nearby one or more casino or riverboat gaming areas might provide courses and gaming subject relevant to these operations.
Although the two educational programs should have many gaming fundamentals in common, in other ways casino and riverboat operations differ substantially from pari-mutuel and charitable operations.
A well-planned curriculum will reflect this by, for instance, providing students different information and emphases concerning gaming regulations and controls, other gaming environment factors, types of operations and games, patrons, trends, and so forth, of the chosen gaming specialization.
Likewise, when student preparation targets employment within a particular geographical area, gaming curricula must adapt to appropriate cultural and regulatory considerations, as well as to the style and scale of regional operations.
Now, a curriculum with a very general gaming emphasis such as 'gaming and gambling in society' exemplifies a pitfall cautioned against in a professional college.
We have encountered suggestions of such programs. They contain a very different commitment to gaming education from that advocated here in that they include no gaming management or operations components.
Instead, they are built completely around such courses 'Gaming around the World' (discussing different games here and abroad as cultural phenomena), the 'History of Gaming', 'Social Issues in Gaming', and the 'Psychology of the Gambler'.
The eternal debate for educators concerns the noble position a social science-oriented curriculum enjoys in higher education.
However, if preparing and placing students in gaming operations and/or managerial positions is an objective, totally excluding operations and administration courses is inappropriate.
Such a curriculum educates students about a society of gaming while it omits the essential 'how gaming works' and 'effective gaming management' elements that the industry is beginning to seek, and should expect, from professional programs claiming a gaming emphasis.