Malta Government Setting up Academy to Educate Online Gaming Workers

At a time where many governments in the world have continued to ban or have just begun to legalise online gaming, Malta’s Government has taken steps to encourage its online gaming industry to flourish.

Earlier this week, the government of the small southern European nation announced that it would be setting up an academy for the specific purpose of training and certifying workers in areas directly related to the country’s booming online gaming sector.

It came after various meetings between the government and stakeholders, including a number of online gaming businesses based in Malta.

One of the country’s politicians, Jose Herrera said that following his consultations, it was discovered that more than three quarters of Malta’s online gaming companies found it difficult to find and hire skilled workers.

The academy will aim to directly address this apparent skills shortage in Malta’s growing industry, which has shown significant increase during the recent years. The country’s Gaming Authority increased its revenue by $6 million last year while the amount of online gaming licences increased by nearly a fifth.

Malta is home to some of the world’s most notable online gaming companies, including Betsson, Interwetten and Unibet. Some of the world’s top online poker networks, such as PokerStars, also hold licences to operate in the country.

It is likely that they will benefit from an increased number of local workers who are qualified to fill the roles the companies require. A search of “online poker” on one of the country’s main job seeking websites, Careerjet, yields dozens of job advertisements for positions with Malta-based gaming companies.

The positions range from seemingly lower-skilled jobs such as ‘Dutch speaking Customer Service Agent’, to more highly skilled roles like ‘Fraud Analyst’, ‘Front End Developer’ and ‘Senior Data Analyst’.

Many of the job advertisements have been advertised on the website for a number of months, which may indicate that companies indeed have been experiencing difficulties in finding suitably qualified workers.

Should that be the case, an online gaming orientated academy may benefit the online gaming sector in Malta, especially if the Maltese Government actively encourages Maltese people to undertake its courses.

The proposal to set up an academy shows that the Maltese Government views the online gaming sector as a significant one for its economy, which has performed reasonably well compared to other European nations as of late.