While the recent economic downturn has forced many companies to lay off workers or slow hiring plans, online poker is bucking the trend. Not only are many online poker rooms weathering the economic storm well but many are doing record business.
According to Poker Scout, a site that compiles statistics about online poker rooms, online poker traffic is up 40% from a year ago. Last year was a record year as well.
So how are these poker rooms doing what most other companies can’t? Because they’re relatively new and growing. The poker boom started in the United States where poker was a well known and loved pastime of Americans. Even when the US passed laws which forced many online poker rooms to leave the US the poker rooms simply shifted their strategy to Europe which was just beginning to catch the poker bug. And then they moved east to across Eastern Europe and Russia. In the Americas they forged south and sparked mini poker booms in Central and South America. And while poker has catching on in places like Macau, Australia, and the Philippines, many see Asia as the next market to really explode with growth to keep the momentum going.
So the net effect is that as the boom plateaus in one market the online poker sites stoke the fires in new markets which keeps the growth healthy.
Obviously as a company grows it typically needs more personnel to handle the increased business. And many of the jobs being created in the online poker industry are the result of exactly that effect. But jobs are also created because each new country and/or territory has its own specific needs.
If you’re going to expand into Germany then you need German translators, German speaking customer service agents, someone familiar with the local media market, and perhaps even someone to set the German market strategy.
Country by country online poker rooms have had to hire mini-groups to handle the country/territory specific needs of that country. So in addition to jet getting bigger their organizations are becoming more specialized which means that one person can’t write all of the copy or come up with a marketing plan that works everywhere. They have to defer to specialists in each market who know that market best so they can get the best return on their investments in that market.
So if you’ve ever considered a career in online poker there are plenty of jobs available. And don’t worry, you don’t need to be some sort of poker genius. There are jobs in every discipline from HR to software engineering.
Here’s a sample of jobs recently listed on a poker job Search:
*Google Analytics Expert
*Benelux Country Manager
*Internal Security Analyst
*Technical Project Manager
*German Fraud Investigator
*PR and Events Coordinator
*Director of Web Development
*Polish Customer Service Representative
And that’s just a small sample of jobs posted in the last few days. If you have an interest in working in online poker then you should head on over to a Poker Job Search and see if anything there tickles your fancy. The pay is usually good and seeing how unstable most “safe” jobs are these days you may be making the best career decision of your life.
