Heads up, folks — your job is on the line: the iGaming industry won’t be keeping mascots in 2026.

Let’s Start With a Few Words

Alright folks, we meet again. Today I’m not here to ramble or hype up talk about “blue oceans” or “gold mines.” Today, let’s shut the door and talk about something that’s “directly tied to your own livelihood”. Let me be clear upfront: this isn’t about calling anyone out, and it’s not about telling bosses how to run things. This topic might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s something you really need to hear.

If you’re the boss? Great — grab a pen and draw a circle. Take a hard look at which roles in your company have already been eliminated by “market evolution”, and move quickly to let them “go”. If you’re an employee? Then you should be paying even closer attention. Ask yourself whether the work you’re doing today will still be worth a paycheck in 2026. Don’t wait until you’re pushed out as “outdated capacity” without even realizing where you lost.

As usual, let’s rewind the tape and talk about what things were like back then. Remember when the editor first entered the industry—what a golden age that was. Hiring was all about “making up the numbers”: to hire a customer service rep, all you needed was someone who could breathe, had hands that weren’t crippled, and could type. To hire a promoter, it didn’t matter if they were male or female—anyone who could send “Hey bro, you there?” would do. For risk control, even someone with one eye left was acceptable. After all, the company was “loaded with cash and completely unbothered”. Keeping a big staff was considered “status”, proudly labeled as “talent reserves”

But look at the market now. This is no longer easy money — it’s a real, cut-throat “zero-sum game.” Bosses’ money doesn’t come from the wind anymore (even if it once did). Everyone is calculating productivity per employee, ROI, and cost curves. That’s a clear sign that money is harder to make. Every dollar is being split in half and spent carefully. And now AI agents are everywhere. Automated workflows run faster and smoother than people — no exhaustion, no sick leave, no emotional negotiations. Back in the boom days, keeping a few idle people around as “mascots” didn’t really matter. But in today’s environment? Keeping idle workers isn’t harmless anymore — it’s just asking to die.

If your résumé still says things like “good at pasting external links,” “skilled in manual bulk messaging,” or “proficient at organizing Excel sheets,” then honestly, you might want to switch careers and start delivering food sooner rather than later (and even that job is being eyed by drones). This kind of manual grunt work just isn’t valued by the market anymore. Let me be blunt — because it hurts but it’s true: in front of AI and automation, the value you produce can’t even cover the electricity bill. Don’t wait until your job is gone and you’re still asking, “Why does this always happen to me?” Alright, folks — sit tight. Roll call starts now.

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Position 1: Junior Text Customer Service

"A human-shaped parrot that only sends the same old replies"

Danger Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Almost one of the first positions to be vacated)

Reason for elimination:

• Cost Black Hole: A pure expense that doesn’t directly generate revenue. According to Intercom’s 2026 Customer Service Trends Report, maintaining a three-shift human customer service team costs more than 50 times that of an AI agent. Human agents need social security, commissions, holidays, and may even quit if they are verbally abused by a customer.
• Efficiency domination: How advanced have today’s LLM (Large Language Model) customer service systems become? They can directly understand players’ “slang / insider jargon”, instantly retrieve backend data to check betting records, and even automatically adjust reassurance messaging based on a player’s win-loss situation.
  • Manual Service: Checking a record takes 3 minutes, "Please wait a moment, dear".
  • AI: Delivers a result in 0.5 seconds, "Hey, that one was honestly unlucky, but the ticket is fine — how about we grab a bonus and go again?"

Upgrade/Improvement Directions:

Upgrading from "Responding" to "Managing Emotions" AI’s greatest strength is efficiency, but its weakest point is "not understanding player psychology and emotions." You need to move towards VIP customer emotion management / complaint appeasement / high-value player retention.

• Understanding the psychology of winning and losing
• Knowing when to offer sweets and when to offer a way out.
• Knowing how to coax someone who "criticizes customer service" into someone who "continues to recharge"

The boss no longer asks you "How many replies did you make?", but only: "Can your team reduce churn by 5%?"
[Editor’s Take]

In the past, if you developed incredibly fast typing skills, you could absolutely strut around the company. But now? Forget it! No matter how fast your hands are, can they outrun the code running on fiber optic cables?

Those who only know how to press Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V, like a human repeating machine, only replying with "Dear, withdrawal processing," are, in the boss’s eyes, just a breathing cost, a pure money-shredding machine! These days: either you’re a "sentimental masseur" who can soothe a VIP customer, or if you don’t have that ability, then quickly make room for AI, don’t occupy the toilet without doing anything!

The question for this position isn’t whether it will be replaced, but how long it can be held up.

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Position 2: Traditional SEO Specialist

"An internet cesspool still spewing spam backlinks."

Risk Index: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5, classified as a "slow-death job")

Reason for elimination:

Question-and-answer engines like Google SGE (Generative Search) and ChatGPT don’t give you the chance to "click the link".

• Traffic Logic Changed: Previously, SEO was about "getting your page onto the first page." In 2026, users will directly ask AI, "Recommend a reputable baccarat platform." AI will give the answer directly, and your pile of spam backlinks is useless.
• Low-level tactics are failing: Past methods like "website clusters," "keyword stuffing," and "paraphrasing" are completely transparent to AI search engine algorithms. According to Search Engine Land, the indexing rate of low-quality content plummeted by 70% by the end of 2025.
• Job Value Zeroed: If all you do is post links on forums or use a data scraper to generate a bunch of incomprehensible junk articles, congratulations, your job value is negative. This is because your actions not only fail to bring in traffic but also cause your main site to be penalized in search rankings.
• Unprofitable: SEO will be questioned if it doesn’t impact revenue streams. Even with excellent rankings, if it doesn’t generate income or retain players, the position will be considered "low value for money."

Upgrade/Improvement Directions:

From SEO to GEO, from "creating web pages" to "creating brand signals," the focus will shift from "ranking" to: Will AI name you when answering questions?

What you need to study is:

• AI Overviews / SGE
• Reference logic
• Credibility Asset
• The probability of a brand being "mentioned".

You need to be able to answer one question from your boss: "Why did the AI choose that shady black-market platform next door instead of us?"

[Editor’s Take]

Are there still people posting pseudo-original articles about "the foolproof formula for winning at Baccarat" every day? Wake up, buddy! Modern search engines are smarter than your wife; they’ve seen through your little schemes. The market needs experts who can manage "brand awareness," people who can get AI to speak favorably of your name, not copy-paste movers who only pump out internet garbage. It’s not that we want to target you; you’ve been marginalized to the point that nobody remembers you.

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Position 3: Marketing/Telemarketing

"A blind man searching for a needle in a haystack"

Danger Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5, still able to survive, but worth is decreasing)

Reason for elimination:

Tighter global privacy regulations + extremely low conversion rates = burning money without making a difference.

• Extremely Inefficient Harassment: Still using WhatsApp/Telegram to privately message people one by one? Still buying phone lists and dialing blindly? In 2026, the anti-harassment interception rate will reach 95%. If you make 1000 calls, 10 will be answered, 9 will insult you, and the remaining 1 will be a competitor.
• The disruptive power of attribution technology: Modern advertising emphasizes ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). Programmatic advertising can use big data to precisely target "30-year-old men who are watching a sports game and enjoy playing a few rounds." Since algorithms can automatically push ads to precise customers, why would a boss pay you to "take a chance" one by one?

Upgrade/Improvement Directions:

From "harassing promotions" to "data-driven advertising," what you need to understand is not "how many messages to send", but rather:

• ROAS
• CAC
• LTV
• Attribution Model

You need to be able to answer one question from your boss: "How much does it cost to acquire a single, effective, real player?"

[Editor’s Take]

In today’s marketing landscape, if you don’t understand data analysis and attribution models, you’re just a "flyer distributor" at a street corner. Don’t brag to me about sending 10,000 mass messages or making thousands of calls. The boss only cares about results; did anyone top up their accounts? No? Then you’re just wasting the company’s phone and network resources! That era of relying on "mass tactics" for marketing is long gone! The future of marketing is a "systems project," not just a telephone operator’s job. If you don’t understand data, marketing is just burning money blindly.

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Position 4: Junior Graphic Designer

"A graphic design tool 10,000 times slower than AI"

Danger Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5, elimination comes quickly and ruthlessly)

Reason for elimination:

Midjourney and Stable Diffusion can generate 4 high-quality posters in 30 seconds, while you’re still cutting out images?

• The losers in the asset war: The iGaming industry needs a massive amount of assets, including sports event posters, event banners, and landing page images.
  • Manual Design: Conceptualization + Material Finding + Photoshop Compositing + Multi-Size Output = Fastest 2 hours/image.
  • AI-generated: Prompt words + fine-tuning = 5 minutes/10 images.
• The collapse of cost-effectiveness: Even a junior graphic designer earning only a few thousand yuan a month can’t compete with the output and quality of an AI subscription costing tens of dollars a month. The market no longer needs graphic designers who work at a snail’s pace.

Upgrade/Improvement Directions:

From "Drawing" to "Visual System Design", AI can generate images, but:

• Doesn’t understand brand tone
• Doesn’t understand conversion logic
• Doesn’t understand A/B testing

What you need to be able to do is:

• Visual guidelines
• Campaign templates
• Conversion-driven design

And you need to be able to answer one question from your boss: “Why can’t the color be a bit brighter?”

[Editor’s Take]

The boss asks you to design a “Champions League final” poster, and you’re still searching for player images and cutting out backgrounds. Meanwhile, the team next door using AI has already sent 20 different style variations to the marketing team for A/B testing. In our line of work, it’s all about “speed” and “volume”. If you can’t handle AI tools and rely purely on hand-drawing and Photoshop, your craft really isn’t worth much in the gaming industry — you might have better luck painting fine art.
It’s not that your designs are ugly — it’s that you’re “too slow.”

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Conclusion

Brothers, if you’ve read this far, some of you might be feeling a bit uneasy. You saw the title, took a few hits up front, and thought to yourself: “Editor… are you saying we’re all about to be wiped out?”

Let me be clear from the start: it’s not that people are incapable, it’s that the times are changing too fast. We have to acknowledge this reality: AI has completely overturned the way industries operate. Don’t let my earlier harsh criticism fool you; I just don’t want to see you all swept away by the tide of time, left stranded and unable to even be salvaged!

But to say these positions should be eliminated across the board? That’s just laymen spouting nonsense. Let’s be honest, this isn’t about "discarding the donkey after it has served its purpose," but rather that the "donkey" needs to evolve into a "unicorn"! Let’s try to see things from their perspective first. There’s no right or wrong here; it’s all driven by market forces.

From the employee’s perspective: "I’m doing a great job, aren’t I? Editor, you have to come and judge for yourself. Tell me, which of these positions—junior customer service, SEO, marketing, telemarketing, graphic design—wasn’t a pillar of the company back in the day?"

• Customer service taking abuse through the night
• SEO grinding KPIs
• Growth teams trading life for traffic
• Designers cutting images until their eyes went blind

We’ve worked so hard for so many years, why does it suddenly not feel so good anymore? Are we lazy? Or haven’t we tried hard enough? Actually, it’s not that you haven’t tried, it’s that you’ve been trying in the wrong direction. Where’s the problem? It’s that you’re still using a 2018 skill set to try and conquer 2026.
So what’s the gaming market like right now? Traffic is as pricey as Moutai, players are as sharp as monkeys, and regulation gets tougher with every cut. In this kind of environment, "just executing," "just following the process," "just getting the job done" — folks, that’s really not enough anymore.
Now let’s look at it from the boss’s side: It’s not that I want to lay you off — it’s that this position has to evolve. A lot of people think the boss spends every day figuring out: "Who can I cut to save the most money?" Actually, that’s not it at all. Back in the boom days, you could grab anyone who could breathe and still make money, and even keep a few "mascots" around for laughs.
And now? What’s on the boss’s mind is one very realistic question: "Will this company still be able to run three months from now?" You think bosses like laying people off? Cutting one person isn’t cheap at all:

• Initial recruitment costs
• Training costs after onboarding
• Trial-and-error costs on the job
• Handover risks before departure
• Hush money and severance costs after leaving

Furthermore, if the news of the layoffs isn’t kept secret and leaks out, and the industry insiders get wind of it, they’ll be shouting all over the place: "Did you see that? They’re laying people off! This platform is about to run off with the money!" Your boss’s reputation will be ruined. If you could upgrade your position independently, who would want to lay off employees? Therefore, the core issue today isn’t: "Should this position exist?" but rather: "Can this position still help the company fight?"

To be frank, the most ruthless aspect of AI isn’t replacing humans, but rather amplifying the gap. Those who can think will be greatly empowered by AI, while those who can only execute will be rendered useless. But the prerequisite is: you must understand the business, the market, and the company’s goals.

Don’t interpret being "eliminated" as meaning, "Oh no, this is the end of my career."

What it really means is: "This job can no longer be done the old way."

• Customer service representatives can be upgraded to emotional management specialists and retention officers.
• SEO can be upgraded to become a brand and AI search strategy officer.
• Promotion can be upgraded to data-driven growth management.
• Graphic designers can be upgraded to visual systems designers and conversion designers.

The jobs themselves aren’t dead; what’s dead are those who "only follow the instructions." In today’s market, labor is incredibly expensive, and talent is worth every penny. Industries have changed, companies are struggling, and job upgrades are inevitable. This world is no longer about "who works harder," but about "who understands the market, the tools, and the direction." Those who are eliminated are always the "unambitious," never the "experts who know how to use new tools."

This isn’t a wave of layoffs, it’s a wave of upgrades. Whoever gets out of there first, survives. Let’s encourage each other!