Building a career in iGaming: insights from Ó Gribín
As the iGaming sector continues its steady expansion across, the industry is also undergoing a quiet transformation in how talent is recruited, supported, and promoted. Kristal Ó Gribín, founder of the platform Gambling Industry Jobs, offers a close look at today’s job landscape from the perspective of candidates and the employers trying to reach them.
Speaking to SiGMA News in a recent interview, Ó Gribín drew from her fifteen years in the gambling sector, spanning roles in affiliate marketing, CRM, and product development, to explain the unique contours of career building in the fast-moving world of iGaming.
“People want to come and work in this industry for better salaries, better perks and because it’s fast-paced and exciting,” she said. “There are a lot of opportunities. It’s niche – so it’s easy to move around once you get a good grasp of it.”
Advice for job seekers: start with the product
Ó Gribín’s central advice to those looking to break in? Try relevant company products before applying for a role at an organisation.
“Open an account with an online casino. Place a bet. Play some casino games. Read the terms and conditions,” she said. “You can give yourself an edge over anybody else who’s also going to apply. Know about the products, games, promotions, jackpots, etc, and you’re showing that you’re a proactive and engaged candidate.”
She also emphasises starting with a structured environment: “Applying at a big company is a good idea, because they often have an excellent induction programme,” she explained. “Although people shy away from targets, having them helps you laser-focus on what you need to be doing. It helps you grow.”
Networking, too, remains crucial. “I interviewed this woman who shared how an unconventional networking approach opened the door to iGaming,” Ó Gribín explained. “She worked in Sweden, got robbed. She Googled ‘jobs abroad,’ and Malta came up.
Arriving in Malta with no knowledge of the industry, she noticed many Swedes worked in customer support and socialised together. Determined to break in, she networked by frequenting a bar popular with iGaming employees, buying drinks, sparking conversations, and getting noticed. Within two months of networking and applying, she received three job offers in one day, choosing Betsson Group for its large community. Her story proves that even unconventional networking can be a powerful entry point into the industry.”
The gender gap: progress, but still a divide
Speaking of the recently published gender pay gap report produced by Gambling Industry Jobs, a free-to-list job board combining opportunities with career insights and resources, Kristal started with the good news. “If you zoom out and look at the past 7 years, you actually see progress,” she said. Looking at the 18 employers that reported both in 2017 and 2024, 13 of them, 72% reduced their median hourly pay gap. “Brands like PokerStars and Betway were among those that saw a really noticeable reduction in their gaps, whilst the gap for Kindred and Ladbrokes widened,” she noted.
When comparing to the present, 2024 vs 2023, from among 25 employers with comparable data, 12 reduced the gap, 2 were flat, and 11 increased. Ó Gribín said: “It’s more of a standstill than a step forward.”
According to her report, the median bonus gap, a measurement that helps us understand the difference in bonuses given to men and women, told a similar story, with only 10 of 25 companies improving year-on-year, and 3 were essentially unchanged. Not much momentum there either.
The report also outlines the pay quartiles, a measurement of who’s in the top and bottom slices of pay. “This is where you see representation,” Kristal explained. When comparing the data for 2023 and 2024, there is very slightly more presence at the top tier and less concentration at the bottom tier: in 2024, 4 of 25 employers (16%) had over 40% representation of women in the top quartile (up from 3 of 25, 12% in 2023), while 8 of 25 (32%) had over 40% representation of women in the lower quartile (down from 11 of 25, 44% the year before).
In a nutshell, while there’s some positive long-term movement, the more recent data, especially concerning bonuses and the representation of women in higher-paying roles, suggests that there’s still a lot of work to be done to close the gender pay gap in the gambling industry.
For Ó Gribín, awareness is the first step toward progress. “The most important thing is that HR departments are being forced to report on this. They can’t just ignore it anymore. They have to publish the numbers and also come up with a solution, or at least an explanation. It forces them to think about it, whereas before, they may not have considered it at all.”
An industry with stigma—and opportunity
Ó Gribín is quick to acknowledge the complexity of the gambling sector’s reputation, even for those who work within it.
“There is definitely a stigma around it. It’s like if you’re saying you work in the tobacco industry to someone who doesn’t smoke,” she said. “I went for dinner once, and everyone was discussing where they worked, and someone literally asked us to leave after I mentioned that I worked in marketing in this industry. They had a problem with gambling and just didn’t want to hear it.”
She laughs that even within her own family, explaining the “online” side of her work to her grandmother wasn’t always easy. But in a way, it runs in the blood. Her grandfather supplied jukeboxes to several bars in Valletta, the Capital City, in the ’60s and ’70s, and even imported mechanical slot machines, back in the days before the internet existed.
But for job seekers, iGaming offers more than controversy. Kristal Ó Gribín notes that many are drawn to the sector because of its pay and potential for advancement, especially in comparison to more traditional industries.
“If you compare it to the education industry or even tourism, the gambling industry pays well,” she said. “And there are always lots of benefits and perks when you’re working in a big company.”
“There’s a lot of networking around it,” she added. “Entertainment, sports betting, even the colours from slots… when I think about it as an industry, it excites me.”
‘You never stop learning’
From entry-level applicants to seasoned executives, Ó Gribín stresses the importance of adaptability and curiosity.
“All the people I’ve interviewed, they were all curious, they all wanted to learn,” she said.
In a sector constantly reshaped by regulation, technology, and public perception, Ó Gribín sees one constant: a need for people who want to understand the industry.
“For those hoping to enter the gambling sector today,” Ó Gribín advised, “be curious, be bold.”
