As we progress into quarter 3, it seems like this year has gone in a blur, and I am hopefully finally going to get the chance to take a holiday for over one week for the first time in four years. Poor me!

It has been an interesting year for the iGaming industry and also a very interesting year for online gaming recruitment. Black Friday has been one of the most interesting occurrences of all; it seems like it could only be in online gaming where a company can lose 65% of its paying customer base over-night through a sudden crack down on taxation by the US Federal government! But I suppose that is the nature of the beast in the online gaming industry, fast paced, always interesting and often brutal for those companies operating in territories with grey legislation. Naturally, we all hope that the staff of those affected, at companies including Full Tilt Poker and Poker stars, are able to come through this period with their jobs in-tact.

What has this meant for the online gaming recruitment market and the broader iGaming market in general? As you would imagine, when a client loses 50 – 65% of its paying customer base, the first thing that is directly hit is immediate staffing/recruitment, so we have seen a recruitment freeze, or recruitment slow down, for those companies directly affected by Black Friday. I also believe that any instances such as Black Friday create a ripple effect, where the industry in general is hit with a wave of not only realism, but also caution for what is around the corner. I think this applies less so to those online gaming operators who have never touched the US market, however surely these kind of issues are a major concern for the whole industry, from European operators, through to recruitment companies such as our good selves.

On a more positive note, we have been very busy over the past couple of months, and long may that continue. Larger scale projects in quarter two have included Ryan on the trading team recruiting a trading team for a major London operator and Steven and James in the commercial gaming team working on multiple sales roles across Europe for a major solutions provider. We also welcome the addition of Matthew Hand to Hyperion Gaming, who will be joining the commercial team to bolster the already successful outfit of Steven Jackson, James Faux and Ryan Burgess. Roll on quarter 3 and watch this space for more blogging mayhem...