Hidden talent: 888 on the struggles of sourcing US expertise

Global gaming hubs like Malta or Gibraltar provide a huge talent pool for the industry with frequent movement and hopping between competing firms a regular occurrence for many staffers.

For the likes of GVC and Playtech, shifting and relocating staff from Europe to the US to work on building and growing new business arms across the pond has proved valuable, as these staffers know the business and its model well and merely need to adapt to local preferences, as in any market.

But others that have set up shop in the States from Europe believe the market is too nascent and too unique to pull staff from elsewhere and are facing the challenge of securing local talent with an extensive knowledge of North America’s all-encompassing sports culture.

“We thought the US needed to have a more local presence because of time zones and work efficiency. And the American market is a lot more complicated, it has a lot more opportunity and is very expensive to operate in, and you must be very conscious of that,” SVP and head of commercial development for 888 Yaniv Sherman tells EGR North America.

The firm, which operates out of a small hub in Hoboken, New Jersey is a large and complex machine with vast experience in hiring and a deep understanding of the importance of localization.

As it seeks to secure a head of marketing to drive its multi-product strategy in the US, Sherman and group COO Naama Kushnir are wary that local talent is slim at this stage.

And while the role has piqued the interest of some in the market’s retail betting and gaming space, Sherman is adamant the successful candidate will have extensive digital marketing experience so as to understand the operator’s strictly online approach.

Sherman and Kushnir outline the challenges of hiring in such a young market as the US and why it is choosing to look locally versus relocating a senior marketeer from within the group.

EGR North America (EGR NA): How have you found the process of hiring for the US business?

Naama Kushnir (NK): I’ve been in the company for just over 11 years and part of the domain directly under me is the HR department. It’s quite a shift for us because we have extended our global talent reach in the last couple of months and opened up some senior positions in different parts of the world.

We recently decided we needed to bring more local talent into the US business. We have an open position in the US for a leading marketeer, someone to [steer] our PMO [project management office] and commercial business from the ground up.

After that, we’re in hopes that once we bring someone senior on board, we’ll be able to develop a local team. In New Jersey we currently have quite a big operational team of about 20 people.

Most of them are customer support staff. Although we have a few marketing people on the ground, we’re looking to expand our marketing team and have our new senior hire bring in a team locally.

It hasn’t been easy. We were operational in the US many years ago and re-entering is definitely a challenge for us, but one we’re determined to succeed at.

A lot of companies are toying with local versus non-local teams, but one thing we’ve learned in the past year is local knowledge is key for making the market a success.

We’ve got exceptional expertise at 888 and we’ve been in the business for many years, but it’s one thing operating from different locations. We could do all the marketing from Israel but if you don’t have local know-how the implementation will be difficult.

Naama Kushnir, 888 group COO

EGR NA: What are you looking for when hiring in the US and building out the business in New Jersey?

Yaniv Sherman (YS): I think that when you approach something like this, especially when you write out a job description which is a good way of outlining what you want, then there are many check boxes you need to [tick] and in a market like the US the challenge is local flavor versus online experience.

The regulated betting market here is a lot different to the unregulated market. We’ve seen some candidates that have been part of unregulated operations and they don’t fully understand the breadth of complexity of the regulated business.

The business has been in existence in New Jersey since July 2018, which is not enough time for someone to build a complete track record. So, you’re either looking for someone that has online expertise outside of regulated gaming but are US-based and American and bring in local flavor, or you’re looking at people that have online regulated gaming pedigree but are not as connected to the local sports teams as others.

I think for us, traditionally, we’ve operated in markets in a very lean way by hiring people on the ground and pulled all the resources they have from our global operations. We thought the US needed to have a more local presence because of time zones and work efficiency. And the American market is a lot more complicated, it has a lot more opportunity and is very expensive to operate in, and you must be very conscious of that.

When we talk to nominees, we tell them it’s essentially working for a well-resourced and well-funded start-up. It’s taking ownership of our most strategic part of the business.

We have high expectations of a person like that and acknowledge the fact that he or she will need to learn the trade and grow inside the business, learning to work with a global organization. A lot of our competitors have chosen to build everything lock stock here in the US and have bought or hired many people from 60 to hundreds.

We don’t want to go to that extreme because we feel it is lacking the operational efficiency we enjoy. We are operating on a consistent tech stack across the globe, which is also something unique for 888.

EGR NA: How does the hiring process differ in the US?

NK: In the US there are still areas we haven’t invested a lot of effort into because we usually have a great focus on internal promotions and recruitment. We spend a lot of time moving people across different domains. We find our talent becomes a lot more valuable to us when people have time in different parts of the business.

We put a lot of effort in when we are recruiting externally to ensure we do it right. Because the US is still a new operation for us, we’re still coming to terms with how to do it. We’re working with local headhunters who will help us bring in good talent and we get a lot of advice on the ground on where to look and how to run interviews.

EGR NA: What sort of candidates have shown interest in the position?

NK: Yaniv is on the ground and he often refers people to us directly. We’ve had a few candidates that we are still speaking strategy and build a team to and we are making good momentum and progress.

We started with our focus within the industry and then we extended it to people with good media and online backgrounds. We don’t want to limit ourselves, but we really want someone with the right background who can help us take the next leap with our marketing and managing our P&L (profit and loss) locally.

YS: It’s very much sports-led and event-driven. It’s a market just being formed and in the second NFL season the numbers we’re seeing show the dramatic effect the NFL and other professional sports leagues here have had on the business and the market, and we need to make sure we know how to operate here.

While [the role] is sports-led, the US is not just about sports. It’s also about casino and poker and other products. We have a multi-product approach but we can’t have it all because most of the states are regulating sports betting first.

I think sports has to be part of that conversation and a leading factor in any nominee.

EGR NA: What external sectors or parts of the betting and gaming industry have you received interest from?

YS: I have had some inbounds and there is a healthy interest in the role. We’ve had some very capable and talented people from different sectors. Some from finance and the land-based sector that have a lot of gaming experience but we have a pipeline we should work through because that [kind of expertise] is a bit too far off the mark for them to learn so many things in a short time frame.

We’re a digital company with digital DNA and while they understand US sports betting in an unparalleled way, it’s not really digital experience in some cases. They don’t really grasp the complexity of the digital experience and marketing, and we personally don’t think retail in the US is the way betting will develop. The product expertise in retail doesn’t necessarily translate very well to online.

EGR NA: What is your timeline for building out a US marketing team?

YS: We acknowledged we needed to build a team here but initially we wanted to go out and recruit the team as others have done, but when we started speaking to people we decided to get the first leading position right.

We wanted to have [the lead person] as part of the further recruitment. We didn’t want to hire a team of people and then have someone come in to manage them and want to do something different.

That person should be part of the decision-making process and so the recruitment may take a little longer, but we’re looking downstream and for a team that will be part of the business for years to come. It’s not a short-term hire so you want to get it right and we want them to start being effective within the year.

We’re looking at a team of at least three or four people to be supporting the head of marketing on the ground in the nearer term.

It’s not a massive recruitment drive because we’re operating on our same stack and don’t need to hire a team of developers. We’re thinking more of the marketing and product function as well as CRM, which are the roles we should be focusing on right now.

We have a US-based brand marketing manager at the moment but the vast majority of offers and everything around that is being done from Israel.

888’s US hub is located in New Jersey’s Secaucus

EGR NA: What’s the road map for marketing in the US?

YS: A big part of it is the [New York] Jets contract and driving that forward. We just had our first live casino Jets raffle and we’ve awarded a few players with game tickets and signed memorabilia. Going into next year, naturally we’ve got great plans for both casino and sports.

Having the NFL playoffs and March Madness soon upon us, it’s a busy schedule for the first half of the year and we have a healthy marketing budget to support that.

Part of that is we want whoever comes on board to be part of both budgeting and execution of that process, but for the first half of the year we have a lot of activities already earmarked. There is going to be a lot around sports but we’re also hoping to get other states live during that time frame, so naturally the plan will extend.

EGR NA: How has it been approaching US candidates in a market where 888 is not very well-known?

NK: Actually, I haven’t found that very challenging because we specified we wanted someone with a gambling background and so are looking within the industry where people know 888. I haven’t experienced the challenge of finding someone that isn’t familiar with us yet.

YS: Knowing the brand and knowing the company are two different things in how we operate and what our USPs are, plus the cultural thing. There is a lot of Israeli DNA [and culture] in the company and that’s something people should be aware of.

888 branding at Met Life Stadium