By Ho Lian-Yi

CASINO skills are the flavour of the moment.

Singaporeans are placing their bets that the upcoming integrated resorts (IRs) will deliver jobs as promised.

The two new IRs are expected to create more than 20,000 jobs. One is expected to open at the end of this year, and the other early next year.

One person out to learn such skills is Ms Anne Ong, 42, who had lost her job as an administrator in an investment company last December.

'The market is so bad. I wanted to make use of my time to concentrate on this course, and go into this line,' she said.

In the end, she picked the diploma course in casino management offered by School D'Hospitality, where she learnt the intricacies of being a dealer at a table.

Mr Yeh Choy Yan, 42, the school's executive director, said the casino courses started less than three years ago. It has contributed to the school's growth despite the downturn - last year it had 100 to 150 students. Now it has 350, about half of them taking casino classes.

'In the last six months, we saw a strong surge in the local market,' he said.

He said most locals took the casino courses, while foreign students went for hospitality courses. This is because many of the foreigners were planning on taking their skills home, he said.

Mr Yeh said he sees three categories of people signing up for these courses. The first are the fresh graduates, who have difficulty getting a job in a bad market.

The second are the executives upgrading to prepare for promotions or wanting to move into a new line.

And the last are businessmen who may not intend to work in the IR itself but are using the course to learn relevant skills so they can offer services that are complementary to what IRs offer.

Mr Tony Tan, 45, is a former tour guide who now exports products like flat-screen TVs from China to Europe and the Middle East.

When the downturn hit, his business plummeted by 80 per cent, he said. He then started looking at other options. He felt he was also getting old, and he didn't want to have to struggle to build a business again. He just wanted to work in the casino - a stable but interesting job.

'In Singapore, the casino is a very new opportunity, a very niche market. It's very exciting,' he said.

Miss Joycelyn Mok, 22, a polytechnic IT graduate, said she had been looking for a job for the last six months, to no avail. So she decided to bank on the IR - she took a study loan and signed up for a degree in casino management at School D'Hospitality. The course costs $19,000.

'I'll pay off the loan after I get a job,' she said.

At ERC Institute, they offer a Diploma in Leisure Management (Specialising in Casino Operations). They had 50 students and most of them have graduated.

They have introduced a new class, called Foundations in Casino Operations, which is yet to start.

A spokesman said there was no 'significant decrease' in the number of students since the recession.

Dr Alan Soh, 61, the president of casino college AGMI International, is thinking of expanding. He's planning to move from his Bukit Merah premises (spanning 325 sq m) to a bigger place.

His course fees range from $2,000 for a eight-week basic course for Singaporeans and permanent residents to $4,000 for a five-month pit management class.

'These are for those who want to pursue this new career in a shorter period of time,' he said.

When he started in October 2007, he had 80 students. Now, he has 250, and at the last job fair alone, another 250 expressed interest.

'This course is booming because the IR is just around the corner. It is the talk of the town.'

He said one of his Singaporean students is a banking executive who graduated from the University Of Chicago.

'He feels there's a need for him to change, because the next three or four years is not so good,' he said.

This article was first published in The New Paper.