Is Working For the Gambling Industry a Black Mark? 467
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.'
No. Its not a black mark. Its a bad industry (Score:2, Interesting)
I work in the Gaming Industry in Nevada. Its not a black-mark on your resume from any societal/value thing. However, its a boring, crappy, narrow-minded industry. get out now and do something more interesting.
Why would it be? (Score:4, Interesting)
Admittedly I've never worked with anyone from that industry, but that's more due to location (I don't live near Vegas). Depending on what you're doing, some skills will be useful and some won't. I don't see any reason why not to hire someone because they worked in gambling. For that matter I know a lot of programmers who play poker.
I might stay away from internet gambling sites if you want to work in the US though- the US has arrested executives of them before. But it's not that gambling is a black mark, its that running an online gambling site is illegal, and they might decide to arrest you for helping to do so. The company that hired you is unlikely to care about that though.
Re:porn? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think so (Score:4, Interesting)
No - you'll be fine. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, I think that porn and gambling are excellent proving grounds for a programmer. In the case of websites, these are extremely high demand websites that process a large number of financial transactions, where uptime is vital to revenues, and where there is a high level of attempted cracking and DoS activity. In the case of embedded systems for casinos it's an extremely precise, highly regulated practice where the product must be hardened against attack and must provide a high level of reliability while processing a large number of transactions.
Programmers move bits around. Whether those bits stand for insurance policies, black jack hands, or naughty bits shouldn't really matter to a hiring manager...what should matter is how well you communicate, how well you estimate, and how effectively you move bits around.
Re:porn? (Score:2, Interesting)
Gambling, pretty much by definition, has to work with people who don't know what they are doing. That makes it, if not always worse, at least more clearly bad.
While gambling is generally a tax on people who are bad at math, some people gamble for the entertainment value, and can easily afford to cover their losses.
I'd be interested to see an analysis of different types of gamblers.
Re:Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the gambling industry you're going to be around some people who rub elbows with some real cuthroat businessmen. You'll see things and talk with people who've been in low places.
Those people will be your managers.
Do it. Especially if you're young. You'll be learning so much from such a safe place.
I'd hire you just to hear your stories.
Maybe... (Score:2, Interesting)
Otherwise, why would you ever think it to be bad? They have high security and confidentiality concerns, what employer would see your experience and involvement with a high-security job as a bad thing?
Allow me to educate you about Vegas (Score:5, Interesting)
Showgirls.
If they're not Real Estate Agents/Mortgage Brokers/Daytime Call Girls, they're vampires. You never EVER see them during the day, they pancake on the make-up with a trowel for good reason, and most of them are either taken by large burly boyfriends, or not interested in anything with a Y chromosome.
Oh, to be a young college grad working in Vegas!
Been there, done that. Fought in the dating wars in Vegas from '01-'06. And the only way you ever got lucky was if you had money (to buy girls with), or were a "Vegas Boy", meaning you had no body fat, perfect abs, perfect tan, perfect teeth, perfect hair, wore polo shirts and khaki shorts, and generally sported more bling than most girls do. Oh, and driving a hot car. Just remember, Vegas is one of the few places left in the US where you don't have to have a high school degree to make 40K a year. Lotsa dim, good-looking young boys and girls come to Vegas to party, work crap jobs and make lots of money, which they then promptly spend on partying, and repeat.
And prostitution is legal!
Now this is a valid point. But prostitution is only legal in certain sections of the county, and not in Clark County. So you'd have to drive an hour northwest to Pahrump, where the brothels are at. This is what the smart guys do. Prostitution is NOT legal in Vegas itself, and Vegas Metro's Vice division has lots of fun arresting stupid young dicks trying to pick some tail up when they could have driven an hour away and had lots of tail for the same amount of cash LEGALLY. And then there's the stories of all the scams and robberies perpetrated... Oh yes, loads of fun. Couldn't leave there fast enough.
Re:Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would it be a black mark?
It would around here, in a lot of places. One of the developers I used to work with interviewed at a company that had a banner that read "God Supervises This Office" in the lobby.
Outside southern red states including, ironically, one or two with a healthy gaming industry, it would probably be an advantage. It means you can work in high security areas around a lot of money, don't have any felonies in your background and can work in an environment that's not particularly tolerant of mistakes.
Personally, if a right wing, dogmatic, Bible-thumping company owner didn't want to hire me I'd consider that a badge of honor.
Re:Not a black mark (Score:5, Interesting)
If the company you work for is completely legal it shouldn't cause a big mark. If it's government operated it's as safe as it gets. And probably scores higher than if you have had a work for the IRS (or what it's locally called)
But if you work for a telemarketing company (Who doesn't love to hate telemarketers) or in the "adult entertainment" industry (the sexual harassment factor) you may have a harder time.
I never noticed any stigma attached. (Score:2, Interesting)
Having spent close to 10 years working in Gaming Systems (back end accounting, marketing & reporting systems, real time concurrent data collection for 4-5k+ nodes), I don't think there's really a stigma attached at least here in the us. I've never worked at casino property directly though, staying more with the companies that provide them software/hardware.
I've worked as an FTE and as a contractor for a couple of the larger international players in the space and I think overall it was good experience, casino marketing can be a moral issue for you as you're essentially trying to get people to give you their money praying on their hopes that they can get something for nothing, but that's how all gambling works.
I've since moved out of that industry, from there to direct marketing & data mining/warehousing from there into ecommerce focused, and now onto commercial services (printing, transaction management etc).
I saw a couple people point out travel, depending on what your specific role is and who you're working for you can pretty much end up anywhere. Just in North America, from Indian gaming, to Riverboat gaming & established "legalized gaming zones (ie. Vegas, AC etc) and state run (Winnipeg/Quebec/Sudbury) you could end up all over the continent, then internationally there's large markets in europe, asia, australia, even south africa.
I say go for it. You'll learn some things and collect a check, just like any other job.
Not in the UK.. (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of the British companies doing online gambling have British offices and employees but are actually incorporated in Costa Rica, Panama, Gibraltar, and various other countries with advantageous tax regimes and very little or no regulation. e.g. BetOnSports - Antigua / Costa Rica corporations with UK based holding company, Pokerstars - Costa Rica / Isle of Man; the Isle of Man company appeared after IoM enacted a streamlined deregulation of online gambling which explicitly states it's legal to offer such services to the US at about the same time they introduced 0% corporation tax, quite a fewer companies are now based there [www.gov.im], also here's a list for Gibraltar [gibraltar.gov.gi], some big names there include Ladbrokes which is one of the UK's largest gambling operations, and PartyGaming which is one of the largest online poker providers in the world.
Re:porn? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Other people enjoy the social aspect of gambling such as in blackjack where the players aren't competing against each other. Or in craps, where the players are all competing against... the shooter... or the house.. unless they roll a 7 and it's the third tuesday of the month...."
Exactly. Last night was spent with my wife and a friend up at Blackhawk (Casinos outside Denver in the mountains).
I ended up $175 down for the night playing craps (8pm until about 2am ... ::shrug:: It was fun, and the drinks are free at the tables.
So ... I spent $175 for about 5+ hours of entertainment. Last time I looked, good seats and parking at a 3 hour long NFL game would cost me more than that, and the beer is $7.
Some nights ... I actually MAKE money. Of course ... I never bet on that ;)
Re:A job is a job (Score:1, Interesting)
In today's economy
Everybody who uses that excuse, should be shot on sight.
- Hey, normally I don't like being raped for money. But in today's economy...
- I am a slave and work for $2 an hour. But in today's economy...
- But in today's economy you have to accept everything and anything. Be a nice slave. Because... "in today's economy..."
And the reason we have such a bad economy in the first place, IS that everybody is just playing along in the big fraud game where we are on the paying end.
So your solution for losing everything, is to lose even more? Including the last bit of dignity you had left??
Repeat after me: There is no such thing as a economic crisis!
The money did not go *poof*. It went away from you, and in the pockets of others. There's always someone profiting from something like that.
Money is worth less, but goods (like gold) aren't.
Salaries are lower, compared to the prices of goods, but work is not worth less.
The difference goes straight into the pockets of a few. It gets transformed to goods. So the difference grows even bigger.
But it only works if you use their money. Their money that gets worth less and less compared to work and goods.
So worth with goods instead, as much as possible. Don't play their game. You can only lose.
Re:Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:4, Interesting)
You have to be a Mormon to work for them.
Re:porn? (Score:2, Interesting)
The gambling industry is huge (Score:2, Interesting)
You shouldn't have a problem getting another job outside the gambling industry. However, even if you did, the gambling industry is HUGE. From the experience you get at this job, your knowledge of the industry will make you attractive to future employers.
Also, if you don't have a problem working in the gambling industry, you probably don't want to work for any future employer who does.
Re:porn? (Score:4, Interesting)
I just don't buy it, I don't see how it could be fun without the suspension of disbelief. The only way I could see it being fun is dreaming about winning big and fooling yourself into thinking it might happen. Dichotomy of the mind, part of you knows better and part of you wants to suspend disbelief. I can buy the social aspect of it though, no doubt. Congratulating winners can give you part of the rush they feel. Either way, I don't think its because gamblers are any stupider than I am. I just think it might be a common problem in our species.
It could be worse (Score:3, Interesting)
you could be working for a bank !
Joke aside, I don't think it would hurt you any. I've been part of the hiring process at one of my ex-employers, and we definitely didn't care where the experience was coming from, as long as it was there.
Furthermore, if a future prospective employer is idiot/bigoted enough to blacklist people who once worked in the gaming industry, regardless of what they did there... will you really want to work for them anyway ?
On the other hand, don't get suckered by the flashing lights and bling-bling sounds ... is the actual job any good ?
Re:Isn't that a highly regulated industry? (Score:2, Interesting)
As a low level dev, you are correct.
But I had to do audits and was followed around the casino by big guys in dark suits that blocked my path more than once and said "I'm sorry, that area is under maintenance."
I went to the floor & called my manager and he said "just go around them, we need you to check those."
Then went back to the room and they said "You can't go in there. It wouldn't be _safe_ for you."
After I got back to the office, my manager thought it was funny. He even joked "the desert is a big place. they could bury you out there and nobody would know."
Oh hell yeah! (Score:4, Interesting)
At least in all of Europe. You already know it, when you find out, that all of them are on some small island with specific tax rules. They are very close to the whole fraud industry.
Here in Germany, they were caught more than once, fixing all bets. Even on huge events like soccer & co.
I think of it as the legal arm of the criminals. And if you are in contact with them, soon you end up doing other things where you have to bend your moral values to the breaking point.
I bet if you dig, you can put half of them straight to jail.
I know this, because I worked with them. And I would keep as far away from them, as you'd do with the mafia.
Re:porn? (Score:5, Interesting)
Craps is the only game I've ever played, at Star City in Sydney. I went into the casino flat broke one night with my housemates and scored two non-exchangeable $10 betting vouchers (one for signing up for some members' card thing I've never used, the other a prize from the free scratchie that came with it). After 20 or 30 minutes being taught how to play craps I quit with $30 cash, which kept me in food and nicotine until I got paid two days later. Then I got to watch one of my housemates drop almost $100 in a minute on consecutive dumbass $5 and $10 yo bets. No surprise, we found out soon after that he was a compulsive gambler and had lied about his employment, and shortly after that he skipped the state, owing us around $5000.
I love bright colours and flashy lights as much as the next person whose life ambition is to work their way through Erowid in alphabetical order but dammit, there are so many better places to see them. Buy yourself some holospex [3dglassesonline.com] and come to a rave or something.
Re:Not a black mark (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not a black mark (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A job is a job (Score:1, Interesting)
It's jealousy to surmise that the powerful stay in power at the expense of the working man? Okay...
Re:Not a black mark (Score:1, Interesting)
That's illegal pretty much everywhere. You won't find those machines in Vegas.
Re:A job is a job (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually it's entrepreneurs that create jobs.
When they don't grow their business, business owners don't create jobs. At most they keep jobs since that keeps their business running (and often they destroy jobs when it's possible to replace the people with machines).
The actual state of "owning a business" does nothing to improve society or increase employment. Growing a business (preferably from the ground-up) is what makes a difference.
One needs to distinguish between those whose wealth is the product of their own efforts (typical example: Bill Gates) and those who inherited their wealth and made no effort to expand it (typical example: Paris Hilton).
That said even entrepreneurs do not deserve our gratitude - they did it for themselves, just like we would do in their shoes. Some of them even deserve our contempt, such as those that got rich during the dot.com boom by creating companies with no business plan, selling them (to the suckers, which included plenty of pension funds and old ladies) for millions/billions after which said companies dully went bankrupt, often without having made a day of profit during their existence.
I postulate that of the "contempt for wealth" that you sometimes observe here in /. comes from the observation that far too many individuals have gotten their wealth "as a gift" (inherited) or by deceit (no-future dot.com companies, CEOs getting fat bonuses for achieving targets of "not loosing too much money").
Re:porn? (Score:4, Interesting)