“What made BetMGM the right place for me was the opportunity to build. When I joined, we were a startup with big ambitions. Over the last seven years, I've helped build and scale our global creative organization into a multidisciplinary team.”
Victor Gonzalez Sr. Director, Creative
My path into creative wasn’t typical — no art school, no traditional route. I worked my way up through the New York advertising world, learning by doing and figuring it out as I went.
My creative perspective isn’t traditional either. Skateboarding, hip hop, and punk shaped how I see the world. Bold design, expressive storytelling, and a DIY mentality have influenced how I approach creativity and leadership throughout my career.
I’ve always believed there isn’t one path to great work. The best creative teams are built from people with different experiences, different perspectives, and the confidence to challenge convention.
Looking back, it’s probably no surprise I ended up in gaming. Betting and card games were always around growing up. I remember spending afternoons at Monmouth Park with my family, my Cuban abuela hosting weekly three-card poker games that stretched late into the night, and my other grandmother gathering everyone around the table for marathon pinochle games that often went well past midnight.
What made BetMGM the right place for me was the opportunity to build. When I joined, we were a startup with big ambitions. Over the last seven years, I’ve helped build and scale our global creative organization into a multidisciplinary team spanning design, motion, copy, content, production, creative services, and operations. Together, we’ve launched new brands, built scalable creative systems, produced award-winning campaigns, and helped establish BetMGM as a leader in online gaming.
Along the way, I’ve had the opportunity to work with an incredible roster of talent, including Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Vanessa Hudgens, Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Vince Vaughn, and Wayne Gretzky, to name a few. Every project came with different creative challenges, personalities, and expectations. Pulling them off required great ideas, trust across teams, and relentless execution.
What I’m most proud of isn’t any single campaign. It’s the team we’ve built. I have the privilege of working alongside talented writers, designers, animators, producers, content creators, and creative services leaders who challenge each other every day. They’re curious, collaborative, obsessive about craft, and never afraid to push the work further. Great creative doesn’t happen because of one person. It happens when talented people trust each other, challenge one another, and rally around a shared vision.
That’s what has kept me inspired throughout my time at BetMGM. We’ve created a culture where ideas can come from anywhere, challenging the status quo is encouraged, and experimentation is part of the process. The work is stronger because of it, and so are the people behind it.
For me, creative leadership has never been about making things look good. It’s about building teams, creating systems that help great ideas thrive, and giving talented people the space to do the best work of their careers.
