Recruiting for the Gambling Industry

The gambling industry can be a very lucrative place to work and it generates a huge range of jobs. From people working at casinos to the team that look after racehorses, gambling is an area that has created a large number of roles for many years.

Across many industries, advances in technology has lead to certain tasks being automated, resulting in a reduction in certain types of jobs. Recruiting in the gambling industry has also seen huge change, with the introduction of online gambling such as live casino sites, mobile app betting etc.

However, there are certain gambling experiences that cannot be replaced by technology; standing at the finish line as your horse comes in, taking your jackpot win out the bottom of a fruit machine or collecting your chips as your poker opponent loses on their final hand. Whilst the popularity of online gambling is soaring, these real life experiences are still craved by gamblers and as such, these areas will still require jobs to support them, just perhaps not as many as they did before.

The statistics show that between March 2015 and March 2016 there was an overall decrease of 1.5% in employees working in the gambling industry in Great Britain [figures provided by the Gambling Commission]. Additionally, we have seen a decrease of 1.8% in the number of betting shops across GB between March 2016 and September 2016.

Between April 2015 - March 2016 non-remote betting had a gross yield of £3,306.21m, compared to £4,468.64m for remote betting, showing that online gambling is now the highest yielding form of betting. With decreases in betting shops and the number of bingo premises also falling significantly, it is clear to see that the future of recruitment in the gambling industry will become more and more focused on the infrastructure around online gambling.

These types of roles include website developers, marketers and many technology based roles. A quick search on a UK jobsite brings up jobs such as Technical Vulnerability Manager, Head of Data Science and Chief Technology Officer. The recruitment strategy has clearly seen a huge shift to support the high demand for online gambling and the skillset required for these roles are massively different to the traditional customer service type roles of working as a betting shop cashier.

Many of the roles are now strongly focused on technology skills and experience and the recruitment sector as a whole is already experiencing a shortage of people with technology skills. When you look at the roles in the financial sector, digitalization of processes such as online banking has increased the number of roles in IT. Even retail is seeing similar patterns, with shoppers increasingly looking to make their purchases online. Supermarkets are competing with each other to offer the best online delivery service.

All of these changes in consumer behaviour mean that people with technology skills are in high demand. It also means that recruiting for people to fill these roles is becoming very difficult, with industries not just competing with their own sector but also across every sector that requires technology based roles.