At the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association conference last week, I sat on a panel with about the plainest possible title: can gaming become a stabilizing force in education and workforce development? I have rarely been asked a more important question on a stage. The longer I listened, the more I kept circling back to two words that, to me, hold the whole answer. Show up. I mean it in both directions. Our industry has to show up for the next generation, and the young people we are trying to reach have to show up too. Careers in this business get built where those two commitments meet, and the good news, which we do not celebrate nearly enough, is that a lot of people are already showing up.
Key Takeaways
- The gaming industry is not starting from zero on workforce development. Tribes, operators, suppliers, and universities are already running scholarships, internships, apprenticeships, and degree pathways that work.
- “Show up” cuts both ways. The industry has to invest in young people, and young people have to bring the reliability, work ethic, and professionalism that no course teaches.
- The hardest seats to fill are not on the casino floor. They sit one layer back, in compliance, data, and technology, which is exactly where trained talent pays off.
- Mentorship is the one resource every leader can give away for free, and it is often worth more than a check.
- We are doing a lot. We can and should do more, and the way to do more is to build training into the deals and partnerships we are already signing.
Our industry is already showing up, and Oklahoma is the proof
If you want to see what showing up looks like, look at Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association, the same group that convened our panel, has endorsed Oklahoma State University’s Certificate in Gaming Leadership, one of three gaming and hospitality certificates the university’s Center for the Future of Work now runs alongside tracks in data analytics for gaming and hospitality operations. Southeastern Oklahoma State University and UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality have gone a step further and built a two-plus-two tribal gaming and hospitality degree pathway, so a student can start at home in Oklahoma and finish at the best gaming school in the country. I wrote about that one last November, because it is exactly the model I want to see more of.
That is all layered on top of what the tribes themselves have done for years. The Chickasaw Nation offers higher-education grants, and its foundation carries dozens of endowed and named scholarships. The Choctaw Nation runs a paid internship that puts college students inside real operations for academic credit. Cherokee Nation Career Services sends its citizens to CareerTech centers for vocational training. And the scale of the underlying commitment is genuinely stunning: according to a study from United for Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association, the state’s gaming tribes delivered roughly $351 million to Oklahoma education in 2023, and since 2005 tribal gaming has contributed more than $2.33 billion to the fund that anchors the state’s public schools, close to one of every three dollars of Oklahoma’s public education funding. Nobody handed the industry that story. It built it.
Hard skills get you hired. Soft skills build the career.
On the panel I made the point that the shortage I see across our client-partners is not on the front line. It is one layer back, in the compliance, regulatory, and technology-integration roles that keep a gaming operation licensed and running. Those are teachable hard skills, and the certificate and degree programs above aim right at them. That is the good news for anyone deciding where to point a training dollar.
But I tell every young person who asks me the same thing. The technical skills get you in the door. Everything after that is soft skills. Show up on time. Do what you said you would do. Own the mistake before someone else finds it. Treat the compliance rule as the point of the job, not an obstacle to it. In a licensed, regulated business, ethics and professionalism are not the soft part of the work. They are the work. And work ethic is the one credential you award yourself. No scholarship covers it, and no employer can install it after the fact.
Mentorship is the resource we can give away for free
Money and programs matter, but the highest-leverage thing a leader in this industry can do costs nothing but time. Global Gaming Women, which the American Gaming Association started back in 2011 and which now runs peer mentorship for thousands of women across the industry, works for one simple reason: experienced people make themselves available to people earlier in the climb. UNLV’s International Gaming Institute runs a Young Executive Scholars program that walks under-resourced Las Vegas students through what a career in this industry even looks like, long before college is on the table. MGM Resorts pays for its employees to finish degrees through its College Opportunity Program, and helped stand up the first hospitality apprenticeship of its kind in Nevada.
Every one of those is really just a structured way of showing up for somebody. You do not need a foundation or a program to do the same thing. You need to answer the email, take the call, and make the introduction. I have never regretted a single hour I spent doing that, and neither will you.
We are doing a lot. We can and should do more.
Here is the honest challenge that ran through our whole panel. Oklahoma already has the financial relationship between gaming and education. The opportunity now is to make the talent relationship just as intentional. In practical terms, that means when we bring an operator, a technology partner, or capital into a property, we build a training and knowledge-transfer commitment into the deal itself, not as a side donation but as a term, so the local team can actually run the platform after the outside experts pack up and leave. It means scaling the programs that already work instead of inventing new ones to announce. And it means treating every internship as a two-way audition, because the student showing up for you is also the future colleague you are auditioning for.
Doing more does not require a new institution. It requires the people already in the room to keep showing up, on purpose.
The Bottom Line
The next generation is not a charity case for our industry. It is our supply chain, our succession plan, and, frankly, our reputation. The programs are real and they are working, from tribal scholarships in Oklahoma to mentorship networks that span the globe. What turns those programs into actual careers is the oldest and least sophisticated ingredient there is: people showing up for each other. So here is my ask for anyone reading this who has built something in gaming. Show up. Mentor one person. Build one training seat into your next deal. Say yes to one internship. The industry that shows up for the next generation is the industry that still has one. And if SCCG can help you turn that intention into something structural, that is exactly the kind of conversation we like to have.
Stephen A. Crystal is the Founder and CEO of SCCG Management, a global advisory firm in the gaming industry working across operators, suppliers, technology providers, and capital.
