Sometimes the best way to learn how to swim is to have someone throw you into the pool.
At least that’s the case for Steve Doty, the American Gaming Association’s director of media relations, who was two months into his new role before being called into duty for last year’s Global Gaming Expo.
For Doty, the gig was a brand new trade in a brand new industry. Throw in a last minute staffing change that effectively doubled his workload with regard to G2E communications, and the event became a true baptism by fire.
“My immediate boss had less time under his belt than I did, so we were both going into G2E not knowing how things work or how G2E operates as a whole,” Doty explains.
“You try to pick up as much as you can before you get there, but it’s impossible to know everything about a show as large as G2E until you get there and hit the ground running,” he adds.
But gaming and G2E weren’t the only brand new concepts to Doty. As a former journalist, so was the trade of public affairs and communications.
He cut his teeth out of college as an on-air television reporter for an NBC affiliate in Michigan, covering everything from NASCAR races to school board meetings to local politics, even anchoring his own weekly sports talk show.
He then spent several years as a video journalist in Washington, D.C. with the Washington Examiner before making the jump into the world of public affairs with the AGA.
“As a former journalist, you kind of have a broad sense of what the public relations and media folks do on the other side of the equation,” as far as drafting press releases and coordinating interviews, Doty explains.
“But what you don’t know, or what you don’t always understand, is that there’s so much more that goes in on top of it” he adds. “Then throw in, on top of that, that you’re learning a completely new industry.”
Like with any new industry, grasping the ins and outs of gaming – from the bifurcation of commercial and tribal casinos, and the numerous regulatory and legal structures governing them, to emerging and complex issues like the legality of sports betting – is more difficult than many of those on the outside looking in may realize.
“I’ve been to Las Vegas before and I’ve been to casinos, so when I saw the job opening I was like ‘Oh, it’s entertainment; how hard can this be? But then you get into it and there’s all the nuances of the industry,” he says.
The most rewarding aspect of Doty’s career evolution has been seeing up close the gaming industry’s impact on the communities in which it operates.
“It’s an entertainment industry, but at the same time does so much for local communities as far as job creation and economic output,” he explains. “When you hear those types of things as a reporter, you’re always kind of skeptical about those numbers and where they come from. As we’ve gone around and done Get to Know Gaming events, you actually see what the industry does for communities on a first hand basis.”
This time around, with an additional year of gaming industry knowledge under his belt and an expanded role in the AGA’s communications shop, Doty is looking forward to enjoying some of the theatrics and excitement of this year’s G2E.
“Last year, I was so overwhelmed by the show that I didn’t get a chance to explore a lot of what makes it so great which is all the innovation and new technology that’s on the floor,” he says.
“I’m looking forward to walking the show floor and seeing what our members put out again this year,” he says, adding that he’ll have a keen eye toward products and conversations around emerging trends like skill-based gaming, esports and sports betting.
