Bally’s Black Hawk Casinos Mark Milestone as Workers Unionize with Teamsters Local 455

Workers at Bally’s three Black Hawk casinos completed a card-check vote and chose representation by Teamsters Local 455, creating the first unionized casino workforce in Colorado history, and the agreement that led to the vote traces back to a neutrality pact signed in November 2025 between Bally’s and the union.

The vote covered 110 employees across the East, North, and West properties, and those employees work in positions that include bartenders, cashiers, cooks, maintenance technicians, slot attendants, and slot technicians, while the card-check process allowed workers to sign authorization cards instead of participating in a traditional secret-ballot election.

Details of the Card-Check Process

Card-check procedures let employees demonstrate support for union representation by signing cards that union officials and company representatives then count, and this method often shortens the timeline between petition and certification compared with National Labor Relations Board elections, yet it still requires majority support from the bargaining unit before certification occurs.

Observers note that Bally’s agreed to remain neutral during the organizing drive as part of the November 2025 neutrality agreement, and that neutrality meant the company would not campaign against the union while the Teamsters gathered cards from the 110 eligible workers.

Workforce Composition at the Three Properties

The 110 workers represent a cross-section of casino operations, and bartenders serve guests at multiple bars while cashiers handle transactions at cage windows, cooks prepare food in back-of-house kitchens, maintenance technicians keep mechanical systems running, and slot attendants along with slot technicians maintain and repair gaming machines across the three Black Hawk sites.

Those roles form the core of daily guest services and equipment upkeep, and union representation now extends to all of them under a single bargaining unit certified by Teamsters Local 455.

Context of the Neutrality Agreement

The November 2025 neutrality agreement established ground rules for the organizing campaign, and under its terms Bally’s pledged not to interfere with workers’ decisions while the Teamsters conducted outreach at the East, North, and West properties, and the agreement also set the framework for the subsequent card-check vote that concluded successfully for the union.

Reports from the period indicate the agreement followed discussions between company management and union representatives, and the outcome produced the first instance of casino employees in Colorado gaining collective bargaining rights through this channel.

Immediate Next Steps After Certification

With the vote certified, Teamsters Local 455 now holds the right to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement covering wages, hours, and working conditions for the 110 workers, and contract talks typically begin within weeks of certification although the precise schedule depends on scheduling between the union and Bally’s representatives.

State labor records show no prior casino union certifications in Colorado, which positions this bargaining unit as the initial example for the sector, and the three Black Hawk properties therefore serve as the test case for how such agreements develop in the state’s casino industry.

Geographic and Operational Scope

Black Hawk sits in Gilpin County and hosts multiple casino resorts, and Bally’s East, North, and West locations operate within that concentrated gaming market, while the unionized workforce remains limited to the 110 employees in the listed classifications across those three addresses.

Future negotiations will address site-specific issues at each property, yet the single bargaining unit structure means terms apply uniformly unless the parties later agree to separate riders for individual locations.

Conclusion

The card-check certification at Bally’s Black Hawk casinos establishes a new precedent for casino labor relations in Colorado, and the 110 workers in bartending, cashier, cooking, maintenance, and slot roles now hold representation through Teamsters Local 455 following the neutrality agreement reached in November 2025, with contract negotiations expected to begin in the months after the August 2026 certification.