Emerging Leaders

The Importance of People

Andrea Arrigo, Director of Database Marketing, Palms Casino Resort

Andrea Arrigo kicked off her career as an analyst for an ad agency in Lisle, Illinois, and was promoted a year later to a senior analyst position. Her bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington afforded her a healthy variety of ways to advance in the business world, and after her venture in media and advertising, it was a job offer from a casino that pointed her towards a career in casino gaming.

Accepting the offer, she became a financial analyst at Harrah’s Joliet Casino & Hotel. This position then led to the change that would have the biggest impact to date on her career, her relocation to Las Vegas. She was offered two positions simultaneously in Las Vegas, and she accepted the more challenging of the two, predicting that a more difficult job would also bring less competition, allowing her to advance to a higher role after mastering her current one. Her prediction was right, and after absorbing every bit of new knowledge that she could during her first six months at Caesars Entertainment, she was promoted to a management position in less than a year’s time.

Arrigo transferred to various casino management positions in the course of her early gaming career and certainly found that managing people was not without its challenges. With a background in producing work product herself, she discovered that getting used to delegating work to team members instead of taking it on directly was an adjustment.

Even more difficult was accustoming herself to taking disciplinary action with team members, and she knew many a sleepless night in those formative years. But in time, she developed strong and direct communications with her team members in which clear expectations were set, finding that this practice made the process easier for both sides. Arrigo also worked on breaking the habit of pressuring herself to have answers to every question posed to her.

“Having all the answers is not always possible,” she says. “It’s better to instead focus on being prepared to find answers. Being resourceful is extremely valuable.”

Fortunate to form strong relationships with many of her direct managers and other senior managers throughout her career, Arrigo relied on them as mentors who she could call with career questions. She also sought mentorship from her peers at times, recognizing that their unique professional experiences and skill sets were something she could draw from.

Now as director of database marketing at Palms Casino Resort, she looks back fondly at the experience of opening this property, citing it as her most challenging and rewarding professional experience so far. The most compelling stage of this process for her was forming a team and watching them make contributions together to achieve common goals. Proud of her team’s achievements, she states, “I believe my team is a reflection of my leadership. When they succeed, I succeed.”

Arrigo offers sage advice for today’s young professionals looking to move up in the gaming industry. To her, leadership is all about people, so building strong relationships with team members, peers and leaders alike is crucial to success. She credits her leadership accomplishments to the fact that she understands both her team and what their roles entail.

To future leaders, she advises, “While moving up the corporate ladder quickly has many advantages, be sure to also take the time to learn as much as you can along the way. Be curious, ask questions, and be open to learning from those who have different experiences than you.” —Marie Casias is manager, marketing and administration for The Innovation Group.

Bet on Hard Work

Dan Hannigan-Daley Chief Executive Officer, Sports Info Solutions

When Dan Hannigan-Daley joined Draft Kings in 2015, the company had fewer than 200 employees and had yet to launch a U.S. sportsbook. When he left in 2021, over 3,000 people had joined the firm, overseeing sportsbooks in multiple states. Hannigan-Daley, internally known as “DHD,” was at the forefront of this expansion and the first person to work on sports betting at DraftKings full time, guiding sportsbook strategy, product, technology and marketing.

Asked about his proudest career accomplishment to date, he says, “Without a doubt, it would be the accomplishments during my time at DraftKings, particularly our launching of the DraftKings Sportsbook on August 1, 2018, being first to market in the newly opened New Jersey market and really signaling that DraftKings was going to be a market leader in this new space. It was a massive team effort and one I was grateful to have had a leadership role in.”

Raised in the Toronto area, Hannigan-Daley has always been a sports fanatic, both as a fan and as an athlete. He attained degrees in sports management from Brock University, where he played varsity soccer and Junior B Hockey, and in sports psychology from the University of East London, landing a job with BD Stadia, where he took bets and eventually ran stadium betting operations for several London-based clubs in the English Premier League.

Asked what traits offset his initial lack of experience, he says, “I think a really important factor, skill set or trait is simply the ability to work hard, go that extra mile, and more succinctly, caring and wanting to succeed. Without the care factor and desire to drive sports forward for myself, there is no chance I’d be where I am now.”

Now Hannigan-Daley is the CEO of Sports Info Solutions (SIS), which collects, analyzes and distributes rich sporting data to help professional sports teams across the NFL, MLB and NBA make better decisions on and off the field of play. Since Hannigan-Daley’s entrance, SIS has expanded the scope of its data to include the sports betting ecosystem. Using this data, sports betting syndicates gain edges, odds providers sharpen their models, and sportsbooks acquire custom feeds to power their products. They’ve partnered with organizations like the Canadian Elite Basketball League, Northwoods Baseball League and others to help them enable wagering on their events, driving fan engagement and increased commercial opportunities.

Hannigan-Daley’s journey from bet-taker to CEO was aided by several important mentors.

“My parents are, of course, huge mentors of mine,” he says. “They were both entrepreneurs who worked together, and showed me the value of working hard, being flexible and having fun. I carry those traits and that belief with me every day. Career-wise, folks like John Lee from BD Sport, James and Greg from BCLC, or Geoff Scott at DraftKings were fantastic mentors I now consider to be great friends.”

As an emerging leader in the industry, Hannigan-Daley describes his approach to helping other young professionals achieve his level of success, saying, “I try to mirror a lot of what great leaders I’ve seen are able to do. Provide autonomy, but guidance. Give challenges, but also support. Be a good listener and understand that people’s goals and motivations are different.”

Hannigan-Daley is looking forward to the next 12 to 18 months of his career.

“For sure, the next evolution of Sports Info Solutions,” he says. “I’ve now been with the organization for 18 months and we’ve seen mass amounts of changes, and I believe are now really on the cusp for some major moves to occur, which excites me. We’ve got an incredible team and set of partners, and a general ambition that is really starting to take shape and will be wonderful to experience in the coming months as the foundational work pays off.”

—Jack Goodin, The Innovation Group

Performing Excellence

Brooke Fiumara Co-Founder and Co-CEO, OPTX

Growing up in Las Vegas, Brooke Fiumara did not think about gaming as a profession. Her goal during those formative years vacillated between the fashion world and performing arts.

Turns out Fiumara passed over both professions in favor of the gaming industry. “I have always been equal parts creative and analytical. Ultimately my career led me to my current role of getting to use both sides of my brain daily,” she says.

That current role is co-founder and co-CEO of data company OPTX.

While still a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Fiumara worked as a receptionist at a spa in a Station casino. With diploma in hand, she was able to seamlessly transfer to the marketing department, her first step in the industry.

“But what kept me in the business was the fact that marketing in casinos is unlike any other industry,” she says. “As a marketer in gaming, you are responsible for multiple little businesses within your one company, from restaurant to hotel to retail to spa to gaming to entertainment. I was never bored.”

Marketing also paved the way for OPTX. Fiumara realized that in hospitality, the fundamental action on consumer behavior required the data and the tools to execute what did not exist.

“And that’s where OPTX was born, out of the deep understanding of the gaps in technology in the gaming industry.”

The same gaps existed whether at Station, Red Rock or Warner Gaming, where Fiumara spent several years in a marketing capacity.

It was important to find a team for OPTX that could bring technology and innovation to close those gaps.

“Solving yesterday’s problems was good, but anticipating the future challenges in the industry and creating a product that could not only keep up with but lead innovation in the industry was critical,” she says.

The pieces came together slowly over time.

“But we truly have the best team in this space, bringing forward new ways of looking at data and technology that have never been done before,” Fiumara says.

Covid struck in March 2020. For Fiumara, the pandemic presented OPTX the opportunity to build a great product that was ready to go by the time casinos reopened their doors.

“When most companies were doing furloughs, we were recruiting the best and brightest data engineers,” she explains.

Fiumara names Bill Warner, CEO of Warner Gaming, as an invaluable mentor.

“I worked for Bill as his chief marketing officer and learned so much about how to operate a business,” she says. “He has demonstrated through his actions what it means to build a meaningful and trustworthy business. He is my first call for advice on those tough business decisions.”

Mark Dunkenson, the CEO of JACK Entertainment, is another mentor.

“Very early in my career, Mark saw my potential and challenged me to take roles I didn’t feel I was ready for,” says Fiumara, who loves to travel with her family. “Without his lessons and advocacy, I would not be where I am today.”

Brimming with confidence, Fiumara expects in the next five years, OPTX will be the leading platform for artificial intelligence and automation of action on data across multiple verticals in the gaming industry.

“We will have also stepped out into other related verticals outside of the gaming industry,” she says. “OPTX truly is just getting started.”

Fiumara acknowledges she doesn’t always make the right decisions.

“But I have no regrets. As the leader of an agile software company, I am making decisions all day long,” she says. “After each wrong choice, I assess how we got there, learn from it and pivot if necessary.”

—Bill Sokolic