Casinos and gaming operations run on watching. Watching the floor. Watching the count room. Watching the cameras. Watching the people who watch the cameras. If your surveillance, security, and floor-ops roles are slow to fill, you already know how much that hurts.

Here is a talent pool most gaming operators walk right past. Veterans. Military police, intelligence analysts, and security forces troops do this exact work in uniform. They monitor, they investigate, they stay calm when the room gets tense. They follow strict rules and keep clean records. That is the job description for half your property.

This guide is for the midsize casino or gaming operator. You hire steadily but you do not run a giant corporate veteran-hiring program. You want better people in surveillance, security, and floor ops without a huge budget. Below is where these veterans come from, how to read their resumes, and how to bring them in.

Why do military backgrounds fit casino roles so well?

Think about what a surveillance officer does. They sit in a dark room and watch banks of monitors. They spot patterns. They flag cheating and theft. They keep detailed logs. They hand evidence to law enforcement when needed.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the role the same way. Gaming surveillance officers watch casino operations for cheating, theft, and rule violations. They run audio and video gear. They keep recordings that police can use. You can read the full breakdown on the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Now think about a military police soldier or a security forces airman. They patrol. They control access points. They run posts and check IDs. They watch for threats and respond fast. They write reports that hold up later. The work rhymes with the casino floor in a clear way.

Intelligence analysts go a step deeper. They live in surveillance feeds and data. They build a picture from many small signals. They brief leaders on what they see. Drop that person into a surveillance room and the learning curve is short. The watching instinct is already trained in.

Which veteran jobs translate to your open roles?

You do not need to learn every military code. You need to know which ones show up for surveillance, security, and floor ops. A few do most of the work. Here are the deep career pages for the most common ones.

Army Military Police (31B) is the classic match. These soldiers run patrols, control access, handle incidents, and write reports for a living. Marine Military Police (5811) bring the same skill set from the other branch.

The Navy Master-at-Arms (MA) is the Navy's security and law enforcement rating. They guard high-value spaces, run access control, and handle force protection. Air Force Security Forces (3P0X1) do the same on the air side, standing posts and securing assets around the clock.

For the surveillance room itself, look at intel. The Army Intelligence Analyst (35F) watches feeds, finds patterns, and reports findings. That is your surveillance investigator before they ever see a casino floor.

How do you read a military resume for these roles?

This is where most casino hiring managers get stuck. A military resume looks foreign. The titles are odd. The acronyms pile up. So a strong candidate gets passed over for a weaker one who used civilian words.

The fix is simple. Read for the work, not the words. When you see a military police title, picture the casino floor. Patrol becomes floor presence. Access control becomes door and cage security. Incident response becomes handling a dispute at a table. The job is the same. The setting changed.

Now look at your screening software. Many casinos run an applicant tracking system. That system ranks resumes. It does not flat-out reject them. A veteran who used military terms will rank lower and sink down the list. They never reach a human. So search by the work and pull those resumes up yourself.

A few quick decoders help. SIR or DA Form means an incident report. ECP means entry control point, which is access control. CCTV is camera monitoring. Force protection is keeping a site and people safe. NCO means they led a team and owned the results. None of that is mystery once you translate it.

Where do you find these veterans before someone else does?

Posting a job and waiting does not work for this pool. The good ones get pulled fast. You have to go to where they are. There are a few reliable channels for a midsize operator.

SkillBridge is worth a longer look. It is a Department of Defense program. You can learn more at the official SkillBridge site. For a midsize operator, it is a low-risk way to test a candidate on real work. You are not paying a salary during the internship. You are watching them do the job. If they fit, you make the offer.

Can a midsize casino compete for this talent?

Yes. You do not need a Fortune 500 budget. You need a clear pitch and a fast process. Big resorts move slowly. A midsize operator that moves fast wins good people every week.

Veterans care about a few things you can offer cheaply. Steady schedules. Clear chain of command. Real work that matters. Room to move up. They are used to structure. They thrive in it. Sell the parts of the job that match how they already work.

Speed is your edge. Decide fast and tell them fast. A veteran who applies on Monday and hears nothing by Friday assumes you passed. Meanwhile your competitor called them Wednesday. Move quick or lose the candidate.

That low number matters for you. It tells you these veterans are not sitting around. They get hired fast. The BLS veterans employment report shows post-9/11 veterans staying in steady demand. So your window to reach them is short. The operator who sources early and moves fast gets the pick of the pool.

What about non-security roles on the floor?

Surveillance and security are the obvious fits. They are not the only ones. Veterans bring habits that work across your whole property. Think guest disputes, cash handling, and shift leadership.

Many service members spent years in customer-facing roles under pressure. They stay calm with an angry guest. They follow strict cash and accountability rules without cutting corners. Those traits matter at the cage, at the tables, and at the front desk. We cover that wider point in why veterans excel in customer-facing roles.

If your property includes a hotel side, the fit gets even wider. Front desk, facilities, and guest services all reward people who show up on time and own their post. Our guide on hiring veterans for hotels and resorts goes deeper on the resort side.

For the security backbone of the building, two more guides help. See hiring veterans for physical security and access control and hiring veterans for emergency management. Both cover roles that touch a casino's safety plan. If your property runs a central surveillance and incident-response hub, our guide on hiring veterans for an emergency operations center maps the command-room skills veterans already bring.

What should you change in your hiring process?

Most casino hiring flows were not built with veterans in mind. A few small changes open the door wide. None of them cost much. They just remove the friction that pushes good veterans out.

First, fix your job posting. Drop the inside-baseball wording. Spell out the daily work in plain terms. Say what a shift looks like. A veteran reads a clear posting and sees the match. A vague one tells them nothing.

Second, brief your screeners. The person reading resumes needs to know that a military police title equals floor security. Give them a one-page cheat sheet of common roles and what they mean. That alone surfaces candidates your system was burying.

Third, treat licensing as a step you help with, not a wall. A veteran may not hold a state gaming license yet. That is normal. Many strong civilian hires do not either on day one. Build the license process into onboarding and you keep good people in the funnel.

There may also be a tax credit on the table. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit has rewarded employers for hiring certain veterans in the past. That credit expired at the end of 2025. It is not available for 2026 hires unless Congress renews it. Congress has renewed it after past lapses, so check the current status before you count on it. The Department of Labor keeps employer resources on its VETS hiring page.

How do you build a steady pipeline, not a one-off hire?

One good veteran hire is nice. A steady stream is better. Casinos always have turnover in security and floor roles. So treat veteran hiring as an ongoing channel, not a one-time fix.

The way to do that is to keep a source of fresh candidates open all the time. New veterans enter the job market every month. You want to be the operator already in front of them. That means a standing relationship with a talent pool, not a job post you remember to refresh.

This is where BMR fits. We add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. That gives you a fresh and growing pool to search for surveillance, security, and floor-ops fit. You search by the role you need, see the real work behind it, and reach out.

What is the first step?

Start with one open role. Pick your hardest surveillance or security seat. Then go look for the military match instead of waiting for it to find you. Search the work. Pull the resume up. Translate the title in your head. Call them fast.

If you want a fresh pool to search, BMR was built for this. Veterans tell us their target roles and lay out their real work. You search and reach out. To get access to BMR's veteran talent pool, head to our hire page. To set up a deeper hiring relationship, see partner with us.

The talent is real. Military police, security forces, and intel veterans do this work every day. You can keep fighting to fill these seats. Or you can go straight to the people already trained for them. The choice is yours.