Slashdot Mirror
Is Working For the Gambling Industry a Black Mark?
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.'
More of a roll of the dice.
Personally, I've never heard of this. But do you really want to gamble with your career?
/rimshot
Seriously, as a hiring manager I care if you can do the job I am hiring you for. If that's software development then that means I'm looking for education, experience, and successfully completed projects. I really can't delve into the minds of HR types so I guess they might hold it against you in the more conservative parts of the country, but they are generally used as a glorified GREP from what I have seen.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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 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.
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/26/1758210
In today's economy, a job is a job
Maybe if this, working for the gambling industry, is your concern, you don't really need a job.
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.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Depends on the "porn", but lots of people see porn as a legitimate thing between consenting adults who know what they are doing. 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.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Anything can be a black mark if the person hiring dislikes it. There is nothing particularly unique about gambling.
In Nevada. If you were to move elsewhere, though, you might be surprised.
(Might be. I personally don't know... I just think that perspectives might be a bit skewed in Nevada due to Vegas).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I worked in the gaming industry, and didnt have any problem getting work afterward. My next employer was pleased that I had worked in a highly regulated industry where if our new code caused downtime, we had to explain to a state gaming board about how it happened.
Well, anecdotal evidence but I do live in Vegas and I worked in a non gaming software company here with people who previously worked for gaming companies and moved on to other jobs without any problems. One of them works for a major military contractor right now, after working for IGT (who makes most of Vegas slot machines) for years. So I don't think it's a problem. I guess it depends on the details. If your job offer is from one of the offshore poker sites or other sites illegal in the USA, it might be a different story.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
It's never been an issue for me, and out of my approximately 15 years in IT, I've spent about 10 of them working for gaming or wagering companies. If anything, gaming or wagering companies seem to prefer people with experience in that industry, so in effect you are probably creating more opportunities for yourself down the track rather than less.
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.
I'm in the gaming industry, and I've interviewed and worked with plenty of people who started out writing gambling software. I wouldn't have any problem hiring someone out of that field, and neither would my colleagues and coworkers. Now, outside of gaming in general, in the world or grown-up software? Not sure about that...
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.
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.
"Gambling, pretty much by definition, has to work with people who don't know what they are doing."
I'm not entirely sure how you managed to arrive at this conclusion.
People gambling aren't always idiots that think "Ima go win a million bucks". Often times they are people that do it for recreation or fun knowing full well that they're loosing money. For example, you can gamble at a slot machine for many hours on only $20-$50. Some people have fun watching the wheels spin and lights flash. For them, it's worth the money. 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.... anyway, there's a lot of people cheering for someone so someone is having fun.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
You've just described about 90% of all jobs.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
We seem to get a lot of these sorts of questions at /. -- and as someone who interviews and makes hiring decisions, let me tell you about the number one factor for making the call:
The Value Proposition
At the end of the day, what I'm doing is entering into an agreement where I give you money (and things that cost money, ie. benefits), and you give me your labor. Your skills and experience and a few other factors (ie. culture fit) alter your "productivity", or how much "labor" I get for my money. In other words, I am spending my money on you, and I want to make sure I get good "value" for that money.
As such, I really don't particularly care who you worked for in the past, unless it can be used as some predictor of future performance. I do care about the skills and experience you have picked up along the way, your personality, your thought-process, etc.
Occasionally, very occasionally, the "where you used to work" question does become relevant. If your last job was for a blood-relative, that is going to be a yellow-flag that needs further investigation and verification. That's probably the most common scenario where it comes into play.
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.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I say go for it. You could end up in Atlantic City, New Jersey in one of Donald Trump's hotels. You would be New York City and Washington DC about 3 hours away. The cultural experience would be quite remarkable I think. Then again, you might end up on a riverboat on the Mississippi river having to work in a cramped cubicle below the waterline.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
The way banks and other financial services companies operate these days, working in gambling would be a GREAT introduction to the world of credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities. Next stop: WALL STREET!
I don't see experience with a gambling site to be an instant disqualifier. Maybe if that's the only kind of site you were involved in it would be, but if it's one of various projects, it shouldn't be big deal.
The only time a resume gets thrown into the trashcan right away is if I see "telemarketing" in any fashion that doesn't involve stopping them or hunting them down. It's something you try to hide, not something to put on your resume. I want someone with some brains.
Also, as an aside: try to avoid going into detail about any activities that are trivial compared to the job you're applying for. Some people seem to think that if they have a 10 page resume padded with irrelevant history, they'll look better. Nope, doesn't work.
see a Text Widget
As somebody who DID work as a systems administrator for a publicly traded, Canadian based company that supplies software to the online gambling industry I can say that unless you're an executive it will have no bearing on your future employment any more than working for an 'evil' defence contractor or such will. Sure, you'd have a hard time getting a job at amnesty international after working for BEA, but the experience you'll get will open more doors elsewhere. The company had far more trouble hiring people who were willing to work for the company, in fact. Though in Canada 'online gambling' had a much more negative connotation than it does in England, where betting shops are everywhere.
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.
Prostitution is not legal in Las Vegas, which is in Clark county. It is, however, legal eight of the state's more rural counties.
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.
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
I haven't worked in the gambling industry myself, but based on what I've read about its extreme computing requirements, I'd be very interested in seeing a resume from someone who had worked in it. The same goes for parts of the online porn industry for much the same reason. Both are very technically challenging environments and are often leaders in innovation. Their achievements aren't lauded as much as they might be if the subject matter wasn't so unseemly in the minds of many, but at the end of the day, data is data.
I'd recommend going for it. Even at its worst, it's nowhere near as disreputable as, let's say, being on the development team for MS Access.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Don't forget poker, where good statistical knowledge can give you a big advantage.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
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, also here's a list for Gibraltar, 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.
"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 ;)
So just because they don't share your same interests they're idiots? Someone could easily say they enjoy watching wheels spin and lights flash so they watch GSN and don't spend an extra $20-$50 on a video game. Some people may just not enjoy video games. So you're not choosing the "better" option, you're just choosing the better option for you.
And some people would call you an idiot for spending $20-$50 on a video game, because there are better options out there. Quite simply, there will ALWAYS be a better option, depending on who you are, how you were raised, etc. So everyone can go around calling each other idiots because of their favorite pastime. Seems kinda pointless doesn't it? Just because video games are your form of poison doesn't mean they are for everybody and it certainly doesn't make them a better choice for everyone else.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Making choices based on your future career prospects is bad. Making choices based on magic is good! Great advice!
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
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.
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.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
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 ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Sadly w/ some HR people anything can be seen as a black mark. Even things you can't change like your name. Something like gambling probably has a higher rate of hitting people's radar due to it's "shady reputation", but you also have to think about yourself. Would you want to work for a company that wouldn't hire an incompetent worker over one that had worked for a gambling software company?
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.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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 and come to a rave or something.
Sadly, they are similiar in that people cheat either way.
Whether it's loaded dice or insider data, someone is always happy to rip someone else off.
one man I knew was fond of making quite genuine threats to the life and limb of his programming team, to coerce them to go along with his dishonest schemes
FBI agents make careers on that kind of bust. Someone should have made a call.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I spent the first twelve years of my career working in both the Class II and Class III gaming industries, we don't call it gambling. :)
I'm primarily a systems administrator and recently decided to find a job outside of the gaming industry. I had expected to find that employers may be concerned about my past employment. On the contrary, most of the employers I interviewed with seemed to be curious about the industry and many of them thought that my experiences from that industry could be an asset.
The gaming biz is very fast paced, requires real-time systems, requires massive networks, requires high-speed communication, requires complex databases, extensive code-review, requires extensive documentation and may requires extensive background investigations (for certain positions). There's a lot to learn in the business and it's a great place to cut your teeth, it's also very broad regarding the types of development that're needed and you could find just about any type of development position you'd want.
Just like any industry, there are both good and bad things about the gaming biz but I've enjoyed my time in the business and may go back to it someday and I'd definitely recommend it to others.
Also, I know few developers in Vancouver that were in the biz for a couple of years and they had no trouble with transitions to other industries.
-tharant
How is it so hard to understand that playing a game for stakes can be simple, recreational fun? Going into an evening of gambling with only the money you are prepared to lose is no different than going to a fair or holiday holding only the money you are prepared to spend on rides, gifts, foods, and frivolous purchases.
Loban Amaan Rahman ==> Anagram of ==> Aha! An Abnormal Man!
If you never spend money on entertainment, you are either student-level poor, or a completely cheap bastard. So why get upset if other people have different ideas about what constitutes entertainment?
I work in the gaming industry for the last 8 years currently as a programmer, just like you at a place where gambling operations are legal. Before working as a programmer I worked as a sysadmin and for a year as a manager (with technical duties too). I have a formal college degree and I pay taxes and report my income. So does the company where I have a full time consultant (oxymoron??) deal.
What I see this far is that there are good and bad guys in the industry. While I consider casinos a total scam (even the honest ones) sports betting operations are usually a lot better. Also credit vs post-up operations differ a lot from each other post up ones being more problematic (charge backs, books does not want to pay, legal problems with US gamblers, etc).
About the US concern: our company does not accept US bettors' money, is completely legal here and so writing programs (or maintaining them) is not illegal by any standards. I see more contacts and work in the industry than at any other workplace this far. Everyone knows everyone and if you are willing to do and can take a little stress here and there you will have people wanting to hire you left and right. Mostly from the gaming industry though.
There is a movie with a quote "Where there is gambling there are criminals", and take this as an advice. There are people in the industry I do not want to talk to, do not want to be seen with, do not want to know and feel extremely uncomfortable around. Not necessarily criminals, but people whose behavior is not compatible with my standards, but then again I saw upper management at the largest computer manufacturer's IT/Middleware division who did not behave much better than that.
So... my bet (pun intended) is that you have to look at the environment and the people you will have to work with/for and make a decision. Also find out about what sites/services they run and google the hell out of it. If you see that there are payout complaints and similar issues; RUN.
I once worked at a place where it became evident that they were ripping people off, I quit after the next paycheck.
Oh, consider that at gaming operations you might have to deal with extreme paranoia if you are anywhere near their data (financial or player info). You do not want to steal and email out their player list or do something similarly stupid. Be clear about not wanting to see any data or make sure you follow protocol near data. If you are tempted to "prove that their security sucks" either make sure they know your are about to demonstrate something or do not do it. Trust me on that one.....
Soooo.. this is my 5c of advice, just use common sense and if you see something wrong just pack your stuff and go somewhere else.
Cheers
There is one and only one way of winning in gamling. Luck.
I don't know about gamling, but gambling is different.
It all depends on the type of gambling involved. If you are playing against the house, then the only path for success is to attempt to exploit short term variance, because the long term odds always favor the house.
However, if you're playing against other players - that is, if you're playing poker or you're a parimutuel player, then you can succeed simply by being more skillful than your opponents.
Hint: The object of poker is not to win or lose the pot at hand. The object of poker is to make the correct decision at every opportunity. If every decision you make has the most positive expected value possible, then you will succeed.
How many of those people are the "slow players?" There are a few high rollers in any given casino and the fact they are treated well is simple logic - but those high rollers can also win and the house has to cover it. How do they cover it? On all those "slow players."
Why do you think casinos have player's clubs? There's not a casino around that doesn't offer perks of some sort and there are scads of people who exchange info on these perks and use that info in selecting their next vacation destination. Retirees sometimes count in that lot but as often as not don't.
Those "slow gamblers" are the bread and butter. They're the people willing to write off 50 or 100 bucks as "entertainment expenses" and will leave happy and return first chance they get so long as they have a full belly from a cheap dinner, or a nice buzz from the cheap booze, or just a good attitude brought on by the hours of fun and the good floor show they watched while they played.
People become addicted to gambling and lose sight of reality. This is no different than any other addiction. You can't make other people's weakness your problem or you'll never work again - I can't work in food services cuz fat people will get fatter; I can't work in medicine because people use hospitals to seek drugs and avoid work; I can't work in the engineering sector because someone might use my project for stealing data or swapping kiddy porn or whatever.
Gambling is entertainment. I know dozens of people who love to gamble and venture from time to time to the casinos. Not one of them leaves for the casino expecting anything but a full belly and a good time. It's not a problem for a single one of them - save for most are too poor due to the aftereffects of king george's collapsed economy to play as often as they'd like.
You'd think so. As an undergrad, I played poker against a statistics post-doc, a mathematics student, a law student, and a sports science student. Most games were won by either myself or the sports science student...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Just because they are statistics pros doesn't mean they have studied the game theory of poker, nor does it mean they are trying. Sometimes it also depends on what kind of poker you are playing. Some versions are more predictable than others.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.