‘Imagine if Malta’s housing market fails’ – iGaming consultant sounds AI job warning

iGaming consultant Phil Pearson warned of the potentially serious economic repercussions for Malta if AI continues replacing several jobs across the industry.

Mr Perason, a former CEO of White Label Casinos, said that AI is currently doing the work of designers, marketers, business developers, coders, engineers and HR officials, and increasingly is taking the jobs of several workers. 

“The business model of AI is very simple at its core. Replace the need for humans and increase profits. Thats it,” he said. 

"It doesn’t code better than a Serbian called Dave who studied five years and just got a job as a junior developer. Now the senior developer just throws what he wants into *insert AI name here* and off it goes. I have a friend who used to pay a company for a two-week job to redesign a website. Now his AI does it in 30 hours.”

And he said the significant contribution of AI companies to the growth of the S&P 500 means the world is essentially valuing a future where AI eats up several millions of jobs. 

Mr Pearson warned it is already become harder for people to find new jobs in the iGaming industry.

“I’ve placed people who used to work for me in many roles with other companies. It didn’t take long. I get to seem like a legend for helping out but honestly it took 15minutes and they did the rest themselves.”

“Now it takes a long time. Startups come and go. Recent investment rounds fail faster due to a tanking job market and explosion of AI-centred projects.”

He warned that the consequences for Malta could be far-reaching, with fewer high-quality jobs, declining wages and, ultimately an economic and housing crisis.

“There are less jobs. Unemployment grows. The jobs left are menial and manual. Go to the supermarket in Malta and outside of the robots and self-checkouts, is anyone local any more?”

“So the country performs modern day slavery by hiring TCNs and paying them less. A prime example of this in Malta can be seen on every news post on Facebook everyday.”

“Because the jobs go down ,the average wage does for anyone non-unreplaceable skilled management, meaning those positions get paid more.”

“This money goes into banks and stocks, mainly into AI stock recently, or to build semi-flying cars. Obviously spending power decreases, so prices fall, inflation fails, and we have a new economical crisis.”

“Imagine if Malta’s housing market fails. Think The Big Short or Margin Call but on this tiny island – if you can’t rent your three-bedroom apartment for €3,500 a month anymore and it’s now sitting vacant for years.”

A number of other people in the iGaming industry shared Mr Pearson’s fears under his LinkedIn post, with Kyzen Founder Carl De Giorgio saying he is even more concerned by “how naive and lax certain people seem to be”.

“The magnitude and speed at which the change is taking place is nerve wrecking,” he said.

Thomas Humes, Founder of the Blue Stars Partnership iGaming consultancy group, warned that if entry level jobs keep getting taken up AI, there will be serious succession issues when it comes to replacing the current people in senior management in the future. 

Grabbit Gaming Founder Jamie Toulson said the problems are even more immediate, admitting he is very worried about the risk of high unemployment and the issues that could cause in terms of mental health and declining tax revenues for Governments. 

“I worry what the world will be like in one year’s time let alone five or ten.”

Cover photo: Phil Pearson/ LinkedIn