Beyond Gambling – Careers in the Casino Sector

Posted by Harry Kane on Friday, January 19, 2018

When you think of careers in the off and online casino markets, the image of a professional gambler springs to mind. While this may be one of the best ways to generate income from this lucrative market, however, there are others that should appeal to a far wider range of experience, accreditations and skill-sets.

This is especially true given the evolution of the online casino market, which is continuing to revolutionise how people gamble while creating demand for a number of new careers and variable skills.

In this post, we’ll look at some of the best careers in the casino sector as a whole, and ask why the next generation of workers should be targeting the online niche.

Why Everything Starts with Bricks-and-Mortar Casinos

While online casino gameplay may have revolutionised the job market, there’s no doubt that bricks-and-mortar establishments remain synonymous with entry-level roles. Many of these revolve around table games such as blackjack and roulette, which require skilled dealers and croupiers to maintain fair and rapid gameplay.

There are several advantages to this role, with the first being the relatively high rate of remuneration for an entry level position. The application process is also simple, as aspiring dealers or croupiers are not required to have any prior experience while they’ll receive full and extensive training while on the job. In fact, they can apply for relevant roles by sending their basic resumes to local casinos, before using showcasing an outgoing and confident persona during in-person interviews.

These positions also provide employees with a broad and detailed understanding of the land-based casino industry as a whole, as they’re stationed at the front line where all of the action takes place. This affords applicants a series of transferable skills, which can in turn be used to forge a progressive career path that ultimately includes several, senior job roles.

Dealer and croupiers often progress to become a concierge host, for example, which carries a far greater level of responsibility and is largely considered as the first step towards a career in senior management. These individuals are tasked with enhancing the customer experience and managing individual complaints, so the experienced earned while interacting with gamblers on a daily basis can be worth its weight in gold.

As we can see, the vast majority of land-based casino roles are entry level in their nature, particularly in older establishments that still require coin loaders in the slot machine section. Similarly, these locations also offer more generic roles such as cashier, bartender and customer service representative, the latter of which also provides a potential springboard into senior and executive management.

Entering the Brave New World of Online Casino Gameplay

While bricks-and-mortar casinos remain competitive and in some instances iconic, they are not representative of the industry’s future. This honour instead goes to online casinos and gambling platforms, which have enjoyed exponential growth during the last decade and now account for more than 33% of industry revenues as a whole.

The progressive and lucrative nature of online casino gameplay is reflected by the sheer range of careers that it offers in the digital age, with a number of these jobs continuing to blur the lines that separate gambling, technology and financial markets.

Given the range of online casino operators and affiliate mobile apps, it should come as no surprise that one of the most common job roles in this sector involves software development. After all, we’ve seen a huge diversification in online casino gaming since 2007, and developers are always looking for talented programmers who can lend their unique expertise. The same principle can be applied to graphic and visual designers too, as most virtual slot games feature increasingly complex images and high quality animations.

There are also potentially lucrative careers featuring back-end technology within the industry, particularly with most online casinos now offering 24-hour accessibility and customer support. This type of service requires various different types of support staff, from IT professionals and trouble-shooters to advanced API technicians. These individuals play a pivotal role in delivering online games and services to a global audience, while they also ensure that payouts are made accurately and in the requisite time.

As online casinos operate exclusively in the virtual space, it’s clear that operators must take additional steps to ensure that their website in visible (particularly in a crowded marketplace). To achieve this, there has been a far higher demand for SEO experts in the industry in recent times, with brands keen to secure a high ranking in relation to relevant keywords and phrases.

This, in turn, has created additional demand for copywriters and skilled Internet marketing strategies, whose task is to leverage content, imagery and innovative promotions to promote brands aggressively.

Beyond the realms of technology, online casino gaming has also created new roles in the field of finance and accounting. This has much to do with the high volumes of capital that are wagered online every single day, while there’s also growing pressure on casinos to process instantaneous deposit and withdrawal transactions. Sure, this process has been helped by advancements in technology and the rise of digital payment platforms and currencies, but financial account managers are still required to oversee processing.

From an accounting perspective, the business model that underpins casino gambling is unlike any other. Unlike the traditional gambling market, online players are often incentivised by lucrative promotions and the promise free gameplay when they register with a new platform. This requires operators to outlay significant sums of cash in advance, so accountants play a key role in organising finances and ensuring that their employers remain profitable.

With online casinos also facing an increasing tax burden in the digital age, there is an onus on accountants to creatively reduce costs while also guaranteeing compliance.

The Last Word in Casino Careers

As we can see, there’s a wide range of casino careers accessible in the modern age, with the online market offering a pronounced diversity of roles. Virtual casinos also offer a larger number of senior and skilled positions, whereas bricks-and-mortar outlets remain synonymous with entry-level roles.

For those who are looking to enter the market in the future, it’s best to focus on the online casino niche. After all, this industry is continuing to grow exponentially and dominate the gambling industry, while its lucrative nature means that it can offer generative and sustainable career progression in the future.