I wouldn't even thought to think about people coming from gambling companies differently.
While I agree in an ideal world, individuals should all stand up against unethical employment options, I am also mature enough to know not to penalise someone who might be otherwise meritorious based on what could be situational.
We should take a stand against predatory companies that attack the vulnerable, but this should be done at a government level, not an individual employee level, because it’s a much more efficient utilisation of resources for a large organisation with teeth to be subdued by another large organisation with teeth.
I would hire someone who used to be in gambling (if they were a good fit culturally and technically of course) because that would take a skilled developer OUT of the gambling industry, implying that you shouldn’t hire someone who used to work in gambling is a sure way to make sure that predatory industry keeps enough developers to keep shirking the poor
Actual LOL - who? I’ve worked at enormous orgs, Google, to medium sized orgs, to startups over my 20 year career, as a senior dev, engineering lead, CTO and now founder, I have hired and mentored hundreds, maybe close to 1000 engineers, hiring managers, project managers, and this has never ever been an issue, in one case we hired 20 engineers from Betsson, a huge (~400M/y) gambling company in Malta into a much larger organisation (non-gambling), and nobody from senior management, middle management or engineers ever even raised this point.
I think you are uncomfortable with it, and are projecting that starry-eyed wishful and naive thinking onto others by saying “a lot of people aren’t going to be comfortable with that”
I have 20 years experience working in 9 different countries, all with very different cultures, that says otherwise, nobody has ever mentioned it.