Online Casino Workers Went on Hunger Strike Over Working Conditions

September 19, 2024:

For more than a month, thousands of employees of Evolution, an online gambling company, have been on strike in Tbilisi, Georgia, protesting over pay, allegations of harassment, and unsafe working conditions.

The strike began on July 12 but escalated in August. Initially, says Giorgi Diasamidze, head of the employee union LABOR, the company threatened that a strike would cause it to pull out of the country entirely. (The company cut 1,000 jobs after the strike was announced.) But when striking workers escalated their protest by attempting to block the entrance to the building in mid-August, Diasamidze and employees who spoke to WIRED allege that non-uniformed private security people hired by the company beat the strikers.

“They are hiding their identities. They did not care about gender. [I know people] who have bruises, who are struggling to walk,“ says Diasamidze. Pictures and video shared with WIRED show apparent bruising and welts from the guards’ aggressive behavior toward workers, and a guard violently yanking a worker off a bench.

A handful of workers, including Mahare Patashuri, went on a hunger strike. “I can’t believe I am still alive,” Patashuri told WIRED in August. Last week, Patashuri was taken to the hospital after 28 days without food.

Evolution spokesperson Carl Linton said in a written statement that the company “has, and will continue to, work towards a resolution of the dispute within the established process and local law. Evolution firmly supports and respects the workers right to strike within the local legal framework.”

“The union’s decision to illegally block the entrances for working employees, violating their right according to Georgian law,” he continued. “We faced challenges in maintaining full operational capacity. Since the blockade has remained, disruptions have caused us to review our presence in Georgia including through redundancies. This review has not been caused by the strike itself, but as a direct consequence of the illegal actions taken by the union.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Evolution is reportedly in talks with the Nevada Gaming Control Board to get a license to operate in Las Vegas, the most valuable gaming market in the US. (The company did not comment on these talks.)

Though the strikes have continued to garner attention locally and in Sweden, where the company is based, the company seems relatively unfazed, even as workers hope that their struggles are taken into consideration by American regulators.

Evolution has licenses to operate in a handful of US states as well as several European countries. But Nevada would be a particular coup—the state brought in more than $15 billion in revenue from gambling in 2023 alone. Earlier this year, Evolution bought table gaming supplier Galaxy Gaming, through which it is applying for the license to operate in Las Vegas.

Kirk Hendrick, chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said that licensing procedures are confidential, and refused to comment further when WIRED reached out about Evolution’s application.

Nevada’s local Culinary Workers Union and the Bartenders Union, which collectively represent some 60,000 workers at casinos in Las Vegas and Reno, have thrown their support behind the striking workers. A representative of the culinary union shared the group’s joint public statement in which it “urges the Nevada Gaming Commission to reject Evolution’s application if it continues to refuse to treat its employees with respect and provide for decent wages and safe working conditions.”

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