Is Working For the Gambling Industry a Black Mark? 467
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the software-is-software dept.
from the software-is-software dept.
An anonymous reader writes 'I'm a recent university graduate and I have been offered a software developer position in a company that supplies software to the gambling and betting industry. At first I was very excited about the opportunity, however, a few of my friends have told me that working for the gambling industry will put a permanent black mark on my career as a software developer. I don't know that many people in the industry with experience in hiring. Google has not helped, and everybody else I ask doesn't know. So I'm asking Slashdot. In your experience is this true? When you hire developers, is the fact that they worked for a gambling company a big turn off? Also, I'm currently in the UK, but would like the freedom of working in US or somewhere else later on in life. So experience from anywhere in the world is welcome.'
Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:5, Informative)
Why would it be a black mark?
If anything, it shows that you can work in a highly regulated field that moves a LOT of money around at a LOT of locations with HIGH security.
As long as none of your references are named Guido, you should be fine.
Suppose you could go work for a porn site (Score:5, Informative)
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/26/1758210 [slashdot.org]
Big NO (Score:5, Informative)
My first job after college was in the gaming industry. It has NOT been a black mark on my record, in fact, quite the opposite, it led to my next three jobs and was a factor in the fourth and fifth because another programmer from the same company was also contracting there at the time.
What it did do, though, was set the start of a pattern for me that I've been unable to escape: 1 to 2 year positions at small companies contracting. I suspect that if you're going to work for Bally Midway or some other such big slot machine company, that wouldn't be a problem- but table gaming software even 10 years after the .com I first worked for is still very much in it's infancy, we're not about to replace dealers with robots and just about tech you put into the pit is going to be somewhat hackable or vulnerable to everything from card counting to spilled alcoholic drinks they insist on comping the players with to keep them playing, so it's kind of a tough business to get into. I'm glad I escaped.
Having said that- in this economy a RCG can't pick and choose- you MUST take the first thing that comes along- so go ahead and go for it. Vegas may be the suicide capitol of the US, but it isn't the worst place you could end up living.
Maybe. (Score:1, Informative)
British, working in the gambling industry, and possibly wanting to visit the US in the future? Why don't you ask David Carruthers [guardian.co.uk], Gary Kaplan [physorg.com] how that worked out for them?
(To be fair, they were the guys at the top and I haven't heard of any lower level staff being arrested, but still, I doubt US immigration would look too kindly on it if you ever were to apply for a green card.)
not for me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:5, Informative)
The guys I know who have worked on Vegas slot machines are right up there with avionics programmers for writing reliably bulletproof code. And they're higher security. If one of them was ever looking for work I'd hire them in a second. If I could afford them.
Offshore Poker programmer? Meh. Not really a plus or a minus compared to most other web programmers. What else you got?
Not for me... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and if you're getting into a highly regulated area such as slots or table games, you'll find that you'll have no choice but to gain skills in careful attention to detail in areas like version control, configuration management, hardware control, and security. That sort of rigour in those important things will serve you well no matter what your next role.
Don't Worry too much about it (Score:5, Informative)
The experience I got was very worthwhile. I got to travel to interesting locations to setup the servers. Places like Curacao in the Caribbean, Malta, Ireland, the netherlands (we did work for the government casinos there, in fact), etc. I started out in a very jr position, but moved up extremely quickly because I was capable and they had a hard time finding good people who were willing to work for them. This gave me Sr-level quality within 2 years. I've since moved on, but I would do it again in a second. It's not been a black mark on me at all and people are usually curious about it. Because of complex legal and national regulations, the accountants also were in a similar position. They had a lot of trouble getting quality accountants, so they had to get more Jr. ones who moved up fast.
The executives had far more trouble after leaving, though they also ran the company rather poorly. In fact I'd say that the worst part was having to work with/for some people that I would consider less than high caliber. Because of this, I became the go-to guy to fix poor decisions made from incompetence at the CTO and director level.
Re:One word (Score:3, Informative)
Prostitution is not legal in Las Vegas, which is in Clark county. It is, however, legal eight of the state's more rural counties.
Re:Allow me to educate you about Vegas (Score:3, Informative)
A friend of mine once described Las Vegas as "Grotesquely American".
Re:Not a black mark (Score:2, Informative)
I think that the reason a lot of people consider it a black mark is because of the mob connection to it from the "old" days. For whatever reason people associate the entire gaming industry with organized crime. When some potential employers (granted the older ones mostly) see that you worked for the gaming industry. They wonder if you are really trustworthy. Though I think today the corporations are starting to change that perception some.
Re:porn? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not a black mark (Score:3, Informative)
I worked for "the adult industry" - I had never heard the word flaccid or turgid in any company. That was 10 - 12 years ago. Never had a problem. .... ...
If the company is named "naked girl gash" you may have a problem but if it is "corkee enterprises" not a problem.
We did database stuff, dns, redundant services,
My wife didn't even really give me a hard time
Paid well, guys were funny and I never saw a naked person or any skin.
After 30 years of working ... it ain't the job or the company ... its the people you work with.
Re:Not a black mark (Score:5, Informative)
Having worked in this exact field, let me assure you - After implementing jurisdictional payout tables on a video lottery terminal (poker, slots, pretty much includes anything you'd find in a modern casino), you'll never want to play the slots again.
At least the old mechanical ones merely favored the house, but "honestly" spun the wheels. Modern machines decide how little you've won and then pick a configuration to match the take.
Re:Uh, what? (Score:3, Informative)
Generally the amount of damage a new hire can do is much more than the amount of good. In most companies an intelligent employee can find ways to steal millions from the company or at least cause that much damage.
This is actually very relevant to the original posters question. One of my friends recently went back to work in the gambling industry at a company he had worked for previously. Even though he had several years prior experience at the same company he still had to go through a mountain of security check including contacting all the employers he had worked for in the interim since he left the first place. Working at a company that runs a high value website involving large amounts of money is only going to help your CV in the UK. In the states you might have to be a bit more vague, but until he gets there this job will be damn good on his CV.
Re:Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:3, Informative)
I've worked on both. I spent 6 years working on online gambling software and my former employer is very highly regarded, both for their software as well as their staff, benefits, etc.
I currently work on casino management software for land-based casinos - software that manages player accounts, points and rewards allocations and redemptions, slot and table accounting - pretty much everything to do with the casino. (I've also had other jobs and positive interviews for other jobs in other completely unrelated industries, so it's also not a case of being stuck in the industry once you've entered it).
Funny enough, despite the fact that I need to have a gambling board license for the current job, and that our software needs to be tested and certified by an independent verification lab, and then certified and licensed by the gambling board, the quality of the software produced by my completely unregulated previous employer was light years ahead of the stuff I've inherited at my current job.
Despite having two gambling related jobs on my CV, I've had no problems with recruitment agents hassling me for interviews despite the job slump, so I think the perceived black mark is very subjective and due to misplaced perceptions about the industry - in fact, it appears that you have incorrect assumptions about the industries yourself, most likely arising purely from perceptions, rather than actual exposure to either industry from the inside.
Although the online gambling industry is not regulated, the various big players in the market have a very huge incentive to be completely legit - firstly, most of the big suppliers have their software and accounts independently audited as a piece-of-mind assurance to their players. Secondly, there is absolutely no incentive to crook the payouts, as the serious players would notice this in an instant and your reputation would fall through the floor overnight (besides, an online casino has much less overhead than a physical one, and can afford higher payout percentages rather than forcing lower payouts through dubious means). Finally, the competition between online casinos is very intense - players generally have accounts across a dozen different casinos and will choose the one that has the best bonuses, best games, best features, and best overall playability without much regard to loyalty at all. This means that online casino developers need to be able to predict the markets demands and adapt their software ahead of the competition much faster than the land-based developers need to, which in turns leads to online casino development houses looking for the best of the best to satisfy their requirements.
tl;dr: there's nothing wrong or shady about hiring people that have worked in large, reputable gambling companies, just like any other industry. Of course there are shady "gambling" sites, but you get those in any industry. My former employer's reputation of hiring excellent staff and producing excellent online gambling software makes their name on my CV a seal of approval - in many interviews, the interviewer raises an eyebrow at the fact that I left there voluntarily, and on numerous occasions have dropped a comment about the fact that they've heard many good things about them.