GRIDIRON
Jeff Favre Brings Unique Football Background to Casino Career—Including a Famous Brother QB
By Sean Chaffin
Life at a bustling casino is a long way from where Jeff Favre grew up. The 52-yearold director of table games at Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia was raised in rural Hancock County, MS, on Rotten Bayou. The Choctaw have lived in Rotten Bayou for centuries and the name derives from the tribe’s word “Banshawah,” or decayed stream. At one time, tribal members dressed their game on the shores of this location and the name stuck.
As Favre remembers the remoteness of growing up in the area: “No neighbors, no corner store, just woods, bayou, and a half-mile dirt gravel drive.”
Football was a big part of life for Jeff and his two brothers, one of whom is the legendary Brett Favre, who went on to win Super Bowl XXXI, was named the NFL’s most valuable player three times, and elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016. Like his famous brother, Jeff Favre has a passion for sports. He also loves his new role at Live! after a two- decade career in the casino industry.
“I’m just genuinely thrilled to be here,” he says. “Philadelphia is a sports town. It’s a passionate town. It’s a competitive town. And that fits me. I grew up competing on a dirt road in Mississippi with no neighbors and no quit in me. That’s still who I am and I bring that same mentality to this floor every single day.
“My focus is on making sure the award-winning Live! experience reaches every single guest, especially the ones who’ve never been here before. Whether you’re a seasoned player or you’re sitting down at a table for the first time, I want you to feel like you’re getting the best game in Pennsylvania.”
Football in the Family
While he may not be a Hall of Famer, Favre has a deep history on the football field as well. He played three years at Southern Mississippi on special teams and as a safety on nickel and dime defensive packages in the early 1990s. Some of what he learned in that role— reading defenses, making real-time decisions in the huddle, adjusting on the fly—has carried over to the casino floor. But growing up with two older brothers who also loved football, Scott and Brett, came with some bumps and bruises at times.
“Come on, Jeff,” he remembers his brother saying. “Goal line. You’ve got to run through us.” The now 5-foot, 10-inch Jeff fell for the ruse.
“I got my tail kicked every single time,” he says. “I don’t know why I kept coming back for more—it was not fair—but I did. Every time. And honestly? That’s what made me. Growing up where we grew up, it was just us. No neighbors. You couldn’t walk down the block or around the corner. We played ball every single day. We could make a ball out of anything. Masking tape, Scotch tape, newspaper, socks—you name it. In fact, my mom has one of those homemade balls in the trophy case at home. She found it while somebody was cutting grass one day and brought it inside and kept it.
“That’s just how we grew up. And that competitive fire—watching Brett every day, seeing how he approached everything—that rubbed off on all of us whether we wanted it to or not. I carry that same mindset onto the casino floor every day. It’s not something I had to manufacture. It’s just how I was raised.”
Casino Career
Transitioning from the gridiron to gaming is quite an interesting change, but Favre is passionate about his job. It’s never the same day twice—never knowing what to expect.
And for someone who grew up playing football and competing every day, that unpredictability and challenge suits his personality.
After earning a degree in accounting, Favre began his career as a corporate analyst with Grand Casinos, which owned three Mississippi properties and managed three Native American casinos. He eventually became general manager at Paragon Casino Resort in Marksville, LA. Roles at properties in Mississippi, West Virginia and Erie, Pennsylvania, followed.
“Each one of those places taught me something different: different markets, different players, different teams,” he says. “You take something from all of it.”
Most recently, Favre served as senior vice president of operations for the opening and subsequent sale of Live! Casino in Salem, NH. That role presented a different challenge: building something from scratch, getting it off the ground, and then navigating a sale.
“My 20 years have prepared me for a lot,” he says. “I’ve done a lot and seen a lot, but I stopped saying years ago that ‘I’ve seen it all’ or ‘nothing will ever top that or this’ because something always does.”
In 20-plus years walking casino floors, Favre has seen some interesting scenarios. That has included craps shooters rolling 100 rolls before sevening out. Favre has had to deal with cheaters, some smarter than others. They all eventually get caught, he says. At Live! Philly, one of the things he enjoys most is an Eagles game day.
“The team members are in their jerseys, they’re dealing, the game is on, and then a big play happens,” he says. “The whole place just erupts. Not just at the tables—at the bar, at the restaurant, everywhere. You can hear it from one end of the property to the other. It ripples. You can feel the energy pass through you and the whole floor doing the Eagles chant—that’s pretty cool.”
On the flip side, seeing the Eagles lose has the reverse effect. The energy gets sucked out of the room, he says. Staff members are as invested in the outcome of the game as the guests. That overall team dynamic makes for a special experience.
“All I want you to do is your job, but I want you to have fun doing it,” he says. “When you actually see them do that, it’s very rewarding. Who wants to go to work and not have fun? Nobody. We have a choice. I have a choice. And we choose to make it worth showing up for. The stories I hold closest aren’t always the biggest wins. They’re the guests who came back because somebody on my team made them feel like the most important person in the room that night. That’s what this is really about.”
As for his own job, managing the property’s table game scene has been exciting, yet challenging, but fun at the same time. He knows the team and had worked with some of the staff before. That comfort level and confidence makes a difference.
“I’m happy to be here and I’m excited about what the future holds,” he says. “What separates one property from another usually comes down to one or two things: your marketing and your team. And I’m really happy with both here. From a team standpoint, I’m very happy to have inherited this team, and I’m very happy to be working with these people. I believe that once we truly come together and get the chemistry right, there’s so much we can accomplish and we’re moving in the right direction.”
Xs, Os & Table Games
With a background in football that runs in the family along with a career in casino management and running table games, Favre has some insight on how these two seemingly different activities share some common traits when it comes to running a team of professional dealers and crew. What are some things table games and football have in common?
“It’s really about the team,” he says. “That’s the simplest way I can put it. Market share is moving the ball down the field. And I don’t think you’ve ever seen a team go to the Super Bowl with everybody playing as individuals. You might technically be on the same roster, but if everyone’s playing for themselves and not working from a team mindset, I doubt very seriously you’ll see them get deep in the playoffs. And for us, it’s no different. We have a team of 400-plus and we depend on each other every single day—some of them may never even see each other because they work different shifts, different days. But they still impact each other. That’s real.
“It’s a lot like football—some shoes are hard to fill. When a great dealer steps away from the table and the next one steps in, the guest feels that. My job is to make sure the standard doesn’t drop when the personnel changes. That’s what coaching is. You’re preparing people before the problem shows up, not after. And here’s the thing that I think people don’t always think about when it comes to table games—even when you’re competing, even when every player at the table is trying to win, teamwork still matters.”
Favre points to a craps table as an example. When the shooter gets on a roll, most of the players are all in it together. The game is Favre’s favorite and he appreciates the team dynamics and excitement that come with rolling dice.
“You’re cheering for the same outcome,” he says. “You’re high-fiving strangers. You’re feeding off each other’s energy. That’s a team. Nobody’s rooting against the shooter (maybe silently); you win together or at least you feel it together when the seven comes. That shared experience is what makes it special. I saw that same thing happen in football. I watched Brett lead teams to do things that—on paper—they probably shouldn’t have been able to do.
“For example, when our dad died, there were reports about whether Brett was going to play or not. I knew he would because our dad wouldn’t have it any other way. So he plays and it’s probably one of the better games that he’s had, if not the best. Players making plays they didn’t normally make. They played up. They played up several levels. It wasn’t because they all suddenly got more talented overnight. It was because of the leader they were playing for and the belief they had in each other. When you’ve got that, it’s kind of overwhelming to watch. I got chills watching it happen. And I’ve seen that same energy on a casino floor when a table is running hot and everybody’s locked in together. It’s the same energy.”
Table Games, Big Events, Bigger Energy at Live! Casino Hotel Philadelphia
Beyond his career in table games, Jeff Favre also offered some answers on what’s in store for players visiting Live! Philadelphia in the coming years after the property recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.
What can table games players expect in the coming years? Five years in and this property is better than it’s ever been, and we’re not coasting. We’ve got 135 live-action table games running around the clock, a dedicated high-limit room, and a 32-table poker room that hosts major tournaments.
We’ve added Double Down Madness to the floor, which has been very well received. High Card Flush is coming to the floor, and there are a few others working through the approval process. We also lowered some of our limits on our blackjack and carnival games. But beyond the games, what I’m most focused on is the experience. Everybody has slot machines and table games. What separates us is how you feel when you walk through that door. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to every single day.
What else are you working on at the property?
We’re also working on launching a dealer school, and I’m genuinely excited about that. Think about it like a draft. You’re bringing in new recruits, teaching them the fundamentals, and at the same time you’re cross-training your existing dealers so they can handle multiple games. That depth is what keeps a floor running at a high level no matter what shift you walk in on.
When I think about setting up that training room, I want it to feel like a locker room. I want somebody to walk in there and say, ‘Yeah, this is where I want to work. This is the place.’ It’s got to have energy, it’s got to be motivating, it’s got to be inspirational because it starts there. You start wrong, and it’s really hard to correct bad habits once they get too deeply ingrained. Once that school gets rolling, it keeps rolling. We’re always building the next roster.
Any interesting events or promotions in the works for this summer?
This summer is going to be unlike anything Philadelphia has seen, and we’re right in the middle of it. The FIFA World Cup is coming to the city with six matches being played steps from our front door. You’ve got America’s 250th Anniversary, MLB All-Star Week, and the Stadium District running at full speed all summer long. The district does 300-plus major events a year here in a normal year. This is not a normal year. This is a different level entirely.
What I want more than anything is for every person who walks through our doors this summer, whether they’re from South Philly or flying in from another country for the World Cup, to walk away talking about it in a positive way. Hopefully, they come back before they leave the city. We’re going to make sure the floor matches the energy of everything happening outside. The team will be fired up, the experience will be at its best, and we want to put on the best show possible for those guests. I think our guests are going to love what we have in store.
