best advice to actually land your first sportsbetting job with zero experience

This newsletter is for two types of people:

🟢 Group 1: You desperately want to work at a sportsbook but have no experience.

🔵 Group 2: You constantly get asked, “how do i get my foot in the door?” and you need a link to send so you don’t have to explain it for the 50th time. (I fall into this bucket.)

💡If you’re in group 1, here’s the play:

1. Customer support is your secret weapon.
Most major operators (think FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, etc..) scale up customer support teams for NFL season. It’s the absolute peak action season, and they need help. There are often entry-level, even some seasonal roles, that don’t require industry experience.

2. Why start here?

• 👣 Foot in door. Once you're in, internal moves to other departments (VIP, marketing, product) become way easier.

• 🎓 Learn fast. CS roles expose you to the pain points customers face, the platform’s quirks, and the industry lingo — it’s like getting paid for an intense crash course.

• 📈 It’s proven. My first break was during NFL season in 2014, answering customer emails and chats. I was a seasonal employee at FanDuel. In 2015 there was an even larger “draft class” of about 20 seasonal support reps. At least 10 of those individuals are now Director level or higher in the sports betting industry today!

3. when to apply?

• 📅 NFL pre-season (June-August) is prime time. Operators post seasonal gigs around then.

• 🔔 Set alerts on LinkedIn for “Customer Support” + “Sportsbook” — you’ll be first in line when postings go live.

🧨 Stop aiming straight for the flashy roles.

I get countless DMs from people asking how to land Associate roles in Marketing, Partnerships, Events, etc., without any industry experience. But it should be Support roles they’re after.

It’s the role that opens doors. Once you’re inside, you’ll have natural opportunities to collaborate with other departments and prove your value, giving you a leg up on everyone trying to break in from the outside.

🎯 How to pivot from customer support to marketing:

Here’s a real world example of how to use your foot in the door to land your dream role:

1. If Marketing is where you eventually want to land, here’s the play:

   1. 🔍 Dig into the data.
      Go through the support ticket database and pull all inquiries related to promotions, bonuses, and campaigns. Look for common questions, recurring issues, and customer sentiment — what confuses people? What excites them? Where do they drop off?

   2. 📊 Spot the trends.
      Are customers constantly misunderstanding how a referral bonus works? Do certain promos drive more engagement but also more complaints? These are insights Marketing needs but often doesn’t have direct access to.

   3. 📁 Package it up.
      Put together a simple document or slide deck:

      • Top FAQs about promos

      • Pain points customers are running into

      • Quick wins to improve user experience (like clearer promo copy or better onboarding)

   4. 📬 Share it with Marketing.
      Don’t wait to be asked — send it directly to the Marketing team or your manager and frame it as, “Hey, I noticed some trends around promotions that could help with future campaigns. Let me know if you’d like me to dig deeper.”

   5. 🫂 Cultivate relationships.

      Continue to provide value while being mindful of the time and energy of others. Doing so without the appearance of expectation for anything in return is the key. Do it because the smart play for your journey is to stack positive interactions.

🎤 Final thoughts:

It may not be glamorous. But it works.

If you treat a Customer Support role as an opportunity — rather than a placeholder — it can launch you into the exact department you’re aiming for.

And when you’re inside the industry, every move gets easier.

Get your foot in the door and then kick it down!

I’m going to do a Part 2 to this where I ask industry veterans for their best suggestions as well. Stay tuned!

Dillon