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Average wage in gaming supply now $90k a year, study says

Updated May 8, 2017 - 4:14 pm

Workers in the gaming supplier industry earn on average $90,000 a year, nearly double the U.S. average, according to a new study being released Tuesday.

More than 55,000 people globally were directly employed last year by gaming suppliers, taking home a total of $4.9 billion in wages, according to an industry report by Las Vegas-based Applied Analysis.

The report doesn’t give a breakdown for how many of the 55,000 employees are based in the U.S. The average American worker earns nearly $50,000 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gaming suppliers include makers of slot machines, table games and lottery equipment as well as companies building the systems, software and content utilized in gaming devices.

The Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers AGEM, a Las Vegas-based industry lobby group with 151 members globally, commissioned the study. Scientific Games and International Game Technology, two of the largest makers of slots and lottery equipment, are among AGEM members.

The average industry wage is affected by both high executive salaries and low entry-level pay. The top seven executives at Scientific Games earned a total of $22 million last year, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. That is equivalent to the average salary of 247 industry employees.

Gaming suppliers support another 157,000 jobs globally through indirect impacts, according to the report.

The gaming supplier industry generated nearly $18 billion in output last year. Including ripple effects on other segments of the economy, the gaming supplier industry’s total global economic impact is about $47.5 billion, according to the report.

Applied Analysis used Securities and Exchange Commission filings and questionnaires in helping to compile the data.

Contact Todd Prince at tprince@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0386. Follow @toddprincetv on Twitter.

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