A moral compass was unnecessary to work at a gambling company, a former industry worker has revealed.
In an article for the Guardian, the anonymous writer spoke out about their time working for a company where employees “never considered or cared about the consequences” of their actions.
Remote gambling – using a phone or computer to bet or play bingo and casino games online – is reportedly the largest sector in the industry, accounting for almost £4.5 billion per year and 33 per cent of all gambling revenue.
‘Moral compass’
The writer said: “When I sat down for my interview, the first thing I was asked was whether I minded working in an industry without a moral compass.
“If I did have any ethics, they said, I would have to throw them out the window because that’s what this kind of work demands.”
The online gambling company they worked for had a casino where “maximum bets were steep” and tens of thousands of pounds could be lost “in minutes”.
‘Wretched’
“We didn’t advertise our offers through email campaigns; we offered ‘suggestions on opportunities’. We didn’t cross-sell; we ‘enhanced the interests of our users’. Or that’s what we were told, anyway.”
“The doublespeak was used to conceal the fact that we were fundamentally guided by the same principles: naked self-interest and an indifference to the social harm our work could cause”, they wrote.
The blogger said that “anxiety and stress” is commonplace in the industry. They said they have now left the “wretched” gambling company for a different job.
“I managed to walk away but, unfortunately, some of those I lured into staking their savings did not.”
Record fine
Last month, a record fine of nearly £8 million was handed to an online bookmaker that failed to block users who wanted to stop gambling.
888 UK Limited allowed 7,000 customers to continue gambling on online bingo, despite having voluntarily banned themselves from other betting platforms.
It also failed to recognise the troubling signs of one customer who staked over £1 million over a 13 month period.
The Gambling Commission fined the company around £7.8 million for the two errors.