How not to get scammed by a gambling employer: 9 red flags

“Won’t they scam me there?” is a question asked more often than “how much does it pay”. The industry looks closed: companies are registered in Malta and Curaçao, half of the hiring happens via Telegram, and the offer arrives as a PDF without a stamp. In reality you can be cheated in iGaming in exactly the same way as in any other remote hiring — and exactly where there’s no licence, no legal entity and no accounting department. Below are the signs that give such an employer away before the interview, and a checking routine that takes half an hour.

9 signs of an employer who won’t pay

1. No contract at all. “Everyone works like this here, the contract is a formality.” Without a document you have no amount, no deadlines and nobody to address a claim to. This is the root of all the other problems.
2. An offer from a private individual. The email comes from a gmail address, the money is promised from a personal wallet, and the company isn’t named legally in the email. A person is paying, not an organisation — which means there’ll be nobody to hold accountable.
3. An unpaid trial of 1–3 months. “Work for a month and we’ll see.” In Malta, Cyprus and Poland the probation period is paid under the contract. An unpaid month isn’t hiring, it’s free labour.
4. The range at the interview is higher than in the offer. You discussed €3 000, the document says €1 800 “for probation, then we’ll raise it”. The raise almost never happens: the company has already shown you how it negotiates.
5. A bonus instead of a salary. The “€500 base + commission, you’ll make up the rest in bonuses” scheme in media buying and affiliate roles. The problem isn’t the bonus, but that the rules for calculating it aren’t written down anywhere and change at the end of the month.
6. A demand to put in your own money. A deposit “for access to the system”, buying equipment at your own expense, paying for training, topping up an ad account with personal funds. A real employer spends money on you, not the other way round.
7. No licence and no legal entity. There’s an “MGA” image in the site footer, but no number and no link to the register. The company can’t be found in any corporate register. It takes five minutes to check — see the next section.
8. Hiring without a single call. An offer after three messages on Telegram, with no video call and no conversation with your future manager. A normal company wants to see the person it’s going to pay several thousand euros a month.
9. Strange urgency. “Sign today, the position will be gone tomorrow”, pressure to decide, refusal to give you a day to read the contract. Haste is needed by someone who’s afraid you’ll check everything.

An overly generous range is a flag too

The most common bait in job ads is a figure that doesn’t exist on the market. Check against real ranges by grade from SpinHire profession database: if a remote junior with no experience is promised twice the ceiling of a middle, what’s being sold isn’t a job.

“Remote support, no experience, €3 000 net, paid in crypto, start tomorrow” isn’t a generous employer — it’s either a grey scheme with the personal liability on you, or bait to be followed by a request to “make a deposit”. Real ranges for junior roles are more boring — and that’s what makes them credible.

How to check a company in 20 minutes

• The licence by number, not by picture. The MGA has a public register of licensees, the UKGC has its own, Curaçao runs the GCB register, and Anjouan has its own number check. Take the number from the operator’s site footer and look it up in the register: the legal entity, the domain and the “active” status should all match.
• The legal entity in the corporate register. Malta — Malta Business Registry, Cyprus — the Department of Registrar of Companies, Poland — KRS, Estonia — e-Business Register. A company that pays salaries is listed there. Whether the name in the contract matches the name in the register is a separate and important question.
• People. Find a dozen employees on LinkedIn. Look not at the number but at tenure: if everyone has “3 months” and nobody has been there longer than a year, something is going on at the company with payments or with management.
• Reviews. Glassdoor, industry Telegram chats, trade forums. Search the company name together with the words “salary” and “delay”. One aggrieved story is noise; three similar ones from different people is a signal.
• The company card on the board. In the companies lists employers with their vacancies, geography and posting history — you can see whether a company hires steadily or appeared yesterday with ten “urgent” positions.

The contract: employment, contractor and “nothing”

There are three legal forms in the industry, and the question isn’t which one is “right” but what you get with each.

• Employment with a local legal entity (Malta, Cyprus, Poland). The employer pays taxes and social contributions, and you get holiday, sick leave, insurance and the labour inspectorate as an authority to turn to. The most protected option — and the standard for relocation to Malta.
• Contractor / B2B on invoice. You invoice as a sole proprietor or self-employed person and pay taxes yourself. A perfectly workable form — provided the contract includes the rate, payment terms, scope of work and a legal entity as the other party.
• “Nothing”. Telegram messages instead of a document. Formally you don’t work anywhere, and your only protection will be publicity.

What to check in the text before signing: the full name and registration number of the hiring company, the amount and currency, the payment date (“by the 10th”, not “at the end of the month”), the probation terms, the termination and notice procedure, and the bonus calculation rules if there is one. If the bonus is described as “at management’s discretion”, assume it doesn’t exist and negotiate the base salary.

The test assignment: where it’s normal and where it’s a scheme

Normal is a 2–4 hour test: analysing a case, a written reply to a player, a campaign outline, an SQL task, a review of creatives. That’s how skills are checked, and you’ll find it at any normal iGaming interview.

A scheme is when the “test” is indistinguishable from work: set up and run real campaigns in your own ad account, answer real players in production for “a couple of shifts to try it on”, write 15 texts for live landing pages, bring in the first traffic “so we can see the result”. If the test output goes into production, it’s a paid task, not an assessment.

If you’ve already not been paid

A sober look at your chances: with an operator that has a licence and a legal entity, the money comes back in most cases — often right after the first written claim. With an anonymous project with no company details there’s almost nothing to recover, and the main lesson here is about the next offer, not this one. That’s why checking before you sign is worth more than any negotiations afterwards.

Where the risks are lower

A boring but working rule: the stricter the regulator, the more reliable the payouts. MGA and UKGC licensees have obligations, audits and very real fines, and an employee with a claim is a reputational risk. Next in descending order: local European licences, Curaçao and Anjouan, then projects with no licence at all.

SpinHire currently lists 6 245 open vacancies from operators, studios and providers with verifiable company cards — browse all iGaming vacancies and check the terms against market ranges before replying to an “urgent” offer from Telegram. And if you’re just entering the industry, start with the breakdown of how to get into iGaming without experience: it also covers which roles actually take newcomers and which ranges the conversation starts from.

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