OMG: MGM Casino marketing director caught on hidden camera: ‘I’m not going to hire whites’

Albie Velarde, Director of Casino Marketing at MGM Springfield, spoke with an undercover journalist from O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), revealing his hiring approach. “I’d probably hire the African American,” Velarde said, emphasizing that he looks for “diverse-based hires” while rejecting white candidates regardless of their qualifications.

“No matter how great they [whites] look on paper, they don’t fit well with my team,” he continued, footage shows.

Velarde also disclosed that MGM closely tracks workforce demographics, with human resources providing monthly reports on gender and racial turnover. “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,” he said. “Hey guys, we’re losing all of our female workforce. Let’s try, you know, let’s put more females through the pipeline.”

He further said a hiring method where employees are replaced with candidates of the same demographic background. “So like if I lose one of my female hosts, I would try to replace her with a female,” he admitted. Using a specific example, he described replacing a Vietnamese host with someone of the “same culture.”

Following the release of the undercover footage, MGM Resorts International responded, distancing itself from Velarde’s comments.

“This person [Albie Velarde] did not have hiring authority during his employment at MGM Springfield and these comments do not reflect the company’s policies and practices,” MGM stated.