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July 3, 2021

Interview with the HR director of a large gambling company

The editorial team of Casino.ru continues a series of publications dedicated to various professions in the gambling industry. The hero of the second article was the personnel director of one of the CIS gambling companies.

– How long has it been since you got into the gambling industry and what role do you currently have? in the company?

– In fact, the function of the human resources department and the only recruiter is in one person. For me, this is a single process as it is much easier to adapt, motivate, and even fire people when you know the employee from the moment of the resume and the first interview. In general, I've been working in HR/recruiting for almost 10 years and in gambling for around four years.

– How did you start your professional career?

– From a clerk in an international personnel agency, then as an external recruiter, then as a recruiter in a food IT company, first without technical subjects, then with them and beyond (non-technical subjects), then + technical and then HR. In fact, there was no formal transition to the position – there was a turning point when it came time to make a decision to take responsibility for yourself and move from being a recruiter to becoming HR on your own.

– What are your responsibilities? What does a typical working day look like?

– Responsibilities – a full recruiting cycle from opening a vacancy to an offer and a full HR cycle from onboarding to firing. There are many tasks, but there is always room for creativity. The company supports any initiative that has a positive impact on the entire business.

I build a normal working day for myself. I start the morning with myself in the sense that I have to check social networks and websites with news. Then I take 2-3 hours to parse the résumé, correspondence with the candidates, and the appointment for an interview. In the afternoon I dedicate myself to more global tasks in the HR area. However, this division is conditional, as communication with employees both during and outside of working hours in the form of personal communication or correspondence provides support in solving their problems.

In 2014 alone, 350,000 people officially worked in gambling in the USA.

– How does HR in the gambling industry differ from other areas?

– The gambling industry is a special niche, and specialists in it are really different from others. Due to the specifics of the company, you often have to act quickly in order to be able to make important decisions in a short time. For this reason, specialists are generally not “processors” but “results” – they focus on the end result and think with results, this applies to any position. In addition, there is a minimum of bureaucracy, which makes it possible to constantly seek and find new tools for digitization and automation, and this is supported and appreciated by the management.

– Do you already have experience with hiring foreign skilled workers? What are your main differences to employees from Russia and Ukraine?

– I've had experience working with English speaking applicants, it's like a personal challenge. For an interview in a foreign language, it is a little more difficult to find the right words and to get a feel for the candidate's character and soft skills. It takes a little longer to understand if your candidate is. I don't see any difference between employees from Russia and Ukraine, they all have the same goals. Locals have a more mature approach, they have a better understanding of what exactly they want, and they are more open about what they are looking for. Maybe the situation has changed now, but when the locals realized about 4 years ago that there were few of them around, they felt the game was on their side, they acted more confidently.

– How have the approaches and methods of recruiting changed over the years in the last 10 years? What changes can we expect in the coming years?

– There are more sources to find specialists, the sites themselves get better, new features appear, which really saves time. For example, an online chat with a candidate on the Rabota.ua website. I am not a fan of phone calls with candidates as I have to go to the meeting room which is distracting and the online chat makes it possible to clarify the necessary details in the form of a correspondence with the candidate while solving other problems. I think more and more necessary and useful automation tools will emerge. And that's good news.

– Which channels do you use to find staff? What works best

– It all depends on the specifics of the position. The benchmark for development and top positions is Djinni. Dou is better suited to find marketers, Telegram channels work well for them. Linkedin was not canceled either. It takes longer to work with, but it's still a good tool for finding rare specialists. Job boards remain relevant for beginners. And of course, employee recommendations work very well.

– What causes most hiring problems?

– Niche specifics – not all job seekers want to work in gambling. And the inability to openly name the product that needs to be worked on. For example in the job description.

– How high is the staff turnover in gambling and why?

– We have a small turnover. Basically in the support service, and this is mainly due to the internal rotation: the growth of the employee's skills and, accordingly, the transfer to a higher position.

– What are the main problems you see now in finding new people?

– It is difficult to find specialists when it is imperative for a candidate to have relevant experience in a niche because no one publicly profiles a gambling company based on the NDA.

– If a person wants to work in the gambling industry, how do you get there?

– A lot of people start with the support service because that's where you can study both the product itself and the audience as best you can.

– Are the salaries of specialists in online casinos different from similar salaries in other areas?

– Yes, they mostly differ upwards for the same positions. At the same time, the market price for technical specialists in development does not depend on the niche.

– Recruiting requires a lot of communication with people. Are there moments of burnout and fatigue in people? How do you deal with that?

– Of course there are moments like this. The possibility to switch between tasks and a change of scenery helps here. If I feel that I am not ready to communicate emotionally, I switch to analytical work, study or develop something new. A change of scenery also helps – driving out of town for the weekend, spending time with loved ones in a tight circle.

– What are the main advantages and disadvantages of your job? What is the most difficult and what is the most expensive?

– The professionals are communicating with specialists from different professional fields, with interesting people. The opportunity to help both an individual specialist and a company become better and more successful. The ability to act out of the box, to be creative, to research or to develop various features, the implementation of which facilitates certain processes. Driven by people, unusual tasks, freedom of action and the ability to come up with new ideas.

Of the minuses – the work is quite stressful, given the niche, often everything is needed “yesterday”. At the same time, when solving a business problem, the human factor must not be forgotten. Even if you feel stressed inside, you must be able to forget these emotions when communicating with employees and switch to the positive. Of course, the first dismissal of an employee was very difficult. This is something that will be remembered forever. Dismissing an employee is now the door to something better for them. The ability to say goodbye nicely and correctly is a winning skill.

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– Why do you most often fire people and how to get it right?

– Mostly for lack of work results. The dismissal must always be done correctly and carried out independently by the manager or by three of us (employee & # 8211; manager & # 8211; HR). Be sure to state the reasons for the dismissal.

– Which is better: a beginner with no experience with burning eyes or an employee with experience?

– Ideally someone with experience and burning eyes.

– Are there more negative or positive emotions, routine or creativity in your work?

– Of course positive emotions that I can find even in the most stressful situations. Routine and creativity – 30 to 70. I try to make my life easier and find ways to shorten the routine, I like to automate processes – that is part of creativity for me.

– What advantages should the HR department have for effective work?

– Efficiency, stress resistance, flexibility, creativity, tolerance, acceptance of responsibility and admission of mistakes.

– How much does HR earn on average? What constitutes his income – a fixed part, bonuses for a hired specialist, something else?

– In my case the position combines both recruiting and HR, so there is no point in making a bonus for a hired specialist – I am looking for people for my own company. If the company has a recruiting department that deals exclusively with search and selection, then yes, the bonus for the hired employee should be paid out after the probationary period. So the recruiter will be interested in the newcomer's quick adaptation and will help him with that.

There should definitely be an HR award, but without a time reference – solely with a focus on results: development and implementation of a new feature, implementation of a tool to automate any routine tasks, etc. The salary fork naturally depends on the level of the position and the performance , benefits, and business impact – from $ 1,500 to $ 3,500. Yes, the scope is wide, but the position in different companies implies different roles.

The oldest gaming company in Monaco is the Monte Carlo Casino

– What is considered unacceptable in this profession?

– Dislike of people, unwillingness to understand the business in which you work and which you help develop through constant collaboration with employees. It's cheesy, but discipline is very important to both HR and any leader and team leader.

– How do your family, relatives and friends feel about your work?

– Great, because usually nobody knows the scope of the company. And those who know their stuff are niche neutral.

– Do you play yourself?

– Rarely and exclusively for testing your company's product. I like it, but not so much that I can spend my free time playing the game. I treat the gambling industry as normal, business as business.

– Do you have experience playing in a land based casino?

– Yes, but only for fun. Was in one of the oldest casinos in Monaco. It would be silly to be there and not play. An incredibly colorful place and a pleasant atmosphere.

Interview with an online casino support representative

The editors of the Casino.ru website publish a number of publications on the professions in gambling. We dare hope that through interviews with industry representatives, gamblers can better understand how the gambling industry works. After all, land and online casino employees have a lot of interesting things to say about their inner kitchen. Their stories will give you a new perspective on casinos and gambling.

The hero of the first release was a specialist in online casino services, which is quite symbolic. Technical support staff are the first to contact new customers and regular players with questions about games, bonuses, account replenishment, winnings, etc. The site's reputation largely depends on its professionalism.

Eugene N. has been technical support staff for a well-known online casino for 5 years and is now involved in the development and promotion of affiliate programs in gambling. He agreed to an open interview on the condition that he would not give his real name and the name of the casino he worked for.

– How did you get into the gambling industry and what made you choose? ?

– Coincidentally. After graduating with a degree in information security, he went looking for work. In many companies, young skilled workers are paid little, the salary is only enough to rent an apartment, little is left for themselves. So when I saw a job for a tech support specialist with a salary four times the market average, I became very interested. I sent my résumé and kept looking. And a week later, I was invited for an interview where I was told in the forehead that this was an online casino. Knowledge of the Russian language, basic knowledge of English and knowledge of HTML were sufficient for the recruitment. I met all the criteria, started studying and working.

– What are the main tasks of a technical support person?

– Answer questions from regular customers and help new customers understand the functionality of the website, the loyalty program and the casino's rules. Newbies often ask how to make a deposit correctly, enter an action code, etc. A support on the phone (an employee on the phone or in an online chat editor) is a person to whom one can complain about a major loss. Sometimes – to cover it up with a real Russian swear language (laughs – approx. Ed.). Personally, I tried not to write formulaic phrases for the losing players, but rather to reassure them and offer a bonus.

We also regularly tested all elements of the site – the display of games from providers, the operation of payment systems, the availability of casino mirrors. After each update of the site, the entire functionality was checked, as the update could affect the previously functioning components. In the event of an unusual situation, information was passed on to the system administrator on duty.

– Which problems and questions are most frequently raised by customers?

– The two most common questions: where is my payment and why the deposit has not been credited. In the first case, the player simply did not wait for the payment to be processed or see the letter requesting documents for verification. We had up to 24 hours to make payments, but payments were typically made within 2-3 hours.

In the second case, the problem arose from accidentally creating a second account. We have implemented quick registration via social networks. The customer could log in through VK, make a deposit and go for tea. After a while, the system automatically logs out, the person logs in via email and does not see the money. In the admin panel we had an algorithm that determines multi-accounts based on IP. We blocked an empty account for such players and left an account with money.

– How did you communicate with the players? What are the rules and regulations in this regard and how is control exercised?

– In dialogue with a customer, it is strictly forbidden to be rude, to use profanity, to leave messages unanswered. Even when the line is charged and the customer has left the location, we have to answer his question.

All information about the customer is collected in the player card available to technical support specialists. All changes in it are automatically recorded by the program: who made the changes, which. This applies to bonuses, personal information, etc.

– Does the tech support specialist have access to the player's balance?

– Supports cannot change the credit, it is forbidden. This function has been deactivated for us. Only the project manager and the management could do this via a ticket.

– How can a player properly build a dialogue with technical support to get full answers to their questions quickly?

– Every dialogue is right to start with a normal greeting and briefly formulate a question. The support tries to answer everyone as quickly as possible if the line is not busy. If the message shows aggression, it contains obscene expressions, the employee can postpone communication, switch to parallel lines. Therefore, of course, it is forbidden to provide support, but there have been cases.

Tools for the technical support staff

– How did you deal with the negatives?

– I have a stable psyche, I have left everything negative at work.

– How did you rest?

– I didn't have much rest. When it was boring, I started learning something new. When it was completely covered, I went to the pub after the shift.

– Overall a difficult job?

– Easy, especially after 3-4 months of exercise. In the first few months I read a lot of examples of real dialogues between colleagues and customers to understand how best to build a conversation, scripts for quick answers, instructions for all admin panels. In the beginning it was not easy to have dialogues with three or more players at the same time – you have to react quickly and keep a lot of information in mind. But over time, the whole process has shifted to what one could say on autopilot. Of course, emergency situations are not taken into account.

– Which situations do you remember best?

– Over time, all unusual situations become common, it is now difficult to remember. I can tell you about the great gain in my shift and the great loss.

On the night shift, a player text me with a question: “What are the withdrawal limits?” I check his account and see the balance of 8 million rubles! He won this amount overnight in Igrosoft's garage slot with the maximum stakes. All of the tech support was humanly concerned that the player would not let all of the money flow back to the casino, but would withdraw it. And so it happened: The customer was previously verified and he was paid in parts, taking into account the limits.

And the biggest loss in my memory was 10 million rubles in just one night! The customer lost the entire amount and made deposits of 100,000.

– It is believed that casino staff can collaborate with players. What systems do online casinos have for this?

– There is no point in working with casino players as it is impossible to tweak slot machines and failing to deposit will not work. as this is monitored by the security service.

There was a case of fraud with one provider. We were directly connected to his games and the company's employees, had access to statistical data, knew when a particular slot should turn out to be a big sum, and won regularly. They did everything competently, deducting 10-15 thousand rubles each. This scheme was discovered in our casino and the software was deactivated. I won't name the company and the machines.

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– Who breaks the casino rules most often and how?

– Usually nobody breaks the rules on purpose. Nobody reads them. Players are not serious about filling out the questionnaire, entering fictitious data, and verification difficulties arise after submitting document scans. We asked such players for a full package of documents: a passport, a bank card and a selfie with them in hand, an electricity bill with an address. If all the documents were for one person, we made changes to the profile and didn't lock the account.

– Now there is more and more talk of replacing support specialists in every company with bots and artificial intelligence. How does this apply to the gambling industry?

– Bots and AI can definitely replace answers to stereotypical questions, but online support with live people will continue. For example, the casino I worked at had cashback that was automatically credited at 00:05. One day at ten o'clock in the evening a customer wrote to me asking for this bonus to be credited. He lost about 10,000 rubles a day, and before accumulating the thousand due to him, even more than two hours. In such a situation, the support can enter the position and activate the money a little earlier if this is a regular customer of the casino. A bot is unlikely to be able to understand the player, compare all the data, and make the right decision.

Chatbots

– Describe a few more situations in order to understand the inner workings.

– For example, a player asks for a bonus. I look at his casino winnings for the month and the last 24 hours, and when the customer has brought in 10,000 rubles, I can credit them with cashback. If, on the other hand, the player has won, withdrawn money and requested a reward at the same time, he may be offered a bonus for a deposit.

Or the player reports that he has not counted a win combination on the machine, which in principle cannot be. We pass on information to the developer, record the story of the game and use the story as an example to explain to the customer why they are wrong. In the company, all of this goes hand in hand with tickets of great importance and subsequent control.

– That means that the technical support employee should also understand the machines?

– We were required to know the top casino games, their official names and their slang to represent the content of the bonus rounds. Usually when a player is looking for a slot they have seen it somewhere or heard of it, so the person describes the bonus game or the main character and we propose. In the course of time I learned all the common names: “books”, “rope”, “strawberries”, “pyramids” etc.

– How many applications did you process on average per day?

– 80-100 calls for a 12 hour shift.

– What was the schedule and how many people were on the team?

– There were day and night shifts for round-the-clock support – from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. O'clock, two days off a week. 5 people worked – 4 junior support staff in shifts and a chief customer support specialist 5 days a week from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

– How much does an employee earn on average with such a schedule?

– Approximately $ 500. This does not include bonuses and bonuses.

– How was your working day?

– When I got to work, I got important information from a colleague, learned overnight what had happened, whether there were technical problems or not. Then he made coffee and sat on the line.

– What programs did you use in your work?

– From the software available on the Internet, only the Atlassian Jira bug tracker, the LiveChat online service and the TeamViewer computer remote control program. Everything else is the company's admin panel.

TeamViewer & # 8211; Customer program

– high fluctuation in this job?

– We had practically no turnover, this is no ordinary call center – if an employee is laid off, important information can leak out. The company followed a policy that it is better to train your employee than to take a new one off the road.

– But you happened upon a vacancy. What advice can you give to people looking to get a job in online casino support?

– Yes, I saw a job posting on a regular bulletin board on the Internet. If you want, you can find companies that are in the gambling industry and send your resume over there. You can also log into Linkedin, where a specialist can be hunted.

– Were there dangerous situations in your job?

– No, only employees with online passports were allowed to enter the office, and the company also had a cool security service.

– Were there any cases of personal acquaintance and informal communication with casino customers?

– Neither. Outside the office, employees are prohibited from disclosing where and by whom they are working. I worked in an online shop for all of my friends.

– Relatives didn't know either?

– Relatives knew and treated absolutely calmly.

– What career development is possible for a technical support employee?

– Depends on the employee's desire and performance, as in any other company. For example, the director of our office started working as a technical support specialist. You can be promoted to head of technical support or move to the marketing department if the specialist has had an active sales.

– What do you mean by sales?

– Each support team has personal promotional codes for deposit bonuses and they have the right to offer these to the players in a dialog, if necessary. At the end of the month, we received bonuses based on the amount players made in a personal promotion. The head of department followed.

– What is the responsibility of the technical support manager?

– Our manager regularly checked dialogues with customers for rude communication from employees, errors in explaining situations, direct sales in chat. Usually the head of department is not on the line – only in emergency situations when customers cancel the chat. For example, if a payment system gateway or one of the mirrors crashed in a DDOS attack.

– In your opinion, does the domestic gaming industry meet western standards? Is the work in foreign casinos different from ours?

– If we are talking about a casino with at least one Curacao license, then it is no different: all casinos have a similar set of gaming software, payment systems and bonuses. More serious licenses simply expand the possibilities of opening up markets in other countries. I am not considering scripted casinos as they are already bent. It seems to me that in three years there will be two or three “Vulcans” and that's it. Players have learned to distinguish fake software from the original. But if I were a gamer I would only play in Maltese licensed casinos – this regulator really does respond to complaints from gamblers.

– Players from different countries are likely to have different mentalities too. Did you come across this in your work?

– Yes they are. In European countries, players are more likely to hunt jackpots, in Russia and the CIS they are looking for income. In addition, customers from Europe have a higher income and accordingly a remote player brings more money into the casino. On the other hand, in my experience, most of the free riders and bonus hunters came to us from Poland.

– Could you have played for real money in a casino yourself?

– This was prohibited in our company. With test accounts, we could top up the balance and test this or that slot.

– But do you play?

– No, I am not a gamer. Although I can play live blackjack 1-2 times a year.

– That means you have never experienced gambling before working in a casino?

– Once at the age of eighteen. Accidentally walked into a game club with a classmate and “threw” 10 cents at that price and won $ 3! Never again before you get a job in a casino. If I am in a country that allows land based casinos, I will definitely visit it.

Online casino gambling

– What is your general attitude towards gambling given your five years of experience in online casinos?

– positive. It seems to me that all countries should legalize online gambling, provided that account verification and payments are controlled by the state. Many rich people play in the casino and have their countries' budgets replenished. And of course government control of gambling addiction is required.

– What advice would you give to people who like to gamble?

– Here are a few tips. After registering, do the verification, only play in official slots and remember that a license does not mean using the original software. Better focus on a Malta licensed casino.

Hobby players are advised to stick to the rule – do not lose more than 10% of your income per month. After a big win, it is better to stop and withdraw the full amount. When it comes to high rollers, you should know the withdrawal limits beforehand. Read the wagering and wagering requirements carefully before activating bonuses. I can also recommend using the Slottracker software which collects all the information about slots and gaming sessions: RTP, start history, general statistics, etc.

The collection of questions is complete. Thank you for your participation! You can read the answers here in the interview.