Vegas Kings Burned Down – But We Came Back Stronger

It’s the first week of July 2022, and I’m waking up to a beautiful Amsterdam morning in my magnificent canal-side hotel during iGB Live. Conference day energy was pumping through my veins as I get dressed in my suit, clipped on my iGaming Supershow lanyard and badge, and headed down to breakfast in preparation for what I expected to be a POWER day on the conference floor.

I’m on my second scoop of eggs when my phone buzzes with a WhatsApp video from my brother and business partner, Ashley. 

The message reads: “Our office is gone!”

WHAT????????

I stared at the video where black smoke was billowing down our office passage, leading right up to our front door. Firefighters were inside, spraying everything down. Our magnificent Vegas Kings dream 2-story penthouse, the office we bought and had called home for more than 10 years, was burned to a crisp.

Everything gone.

All our computers, all our furniture, every piece of history we’d collected from 30 years in the industry, our artwork, all the little toys we’d gathered from conferences around the world, every paper, every memory… gone. If it wasn’t burned, it was damaged from smoke and water.

My heart sank. 

In an instant, my narrative for the day shifted from “Hi, my name is Moshe from Vegas Kings” to “Hi, my office just burned down.” 

What a swing.

The Superpower of Reframing

But here’s the thing… if you know me, I’m one of the most positive guys around. 

I’ve dealt with plenty of trauma and tough moments throughout my life, and I’ve learned to quickly reframe everything and try to see the positive in it. I know how to accept things quickly, not panic, and calmly deal with the reality in front of me and just push forward.

Maybe that’s my superpower. And what perfect timing to put it to the test at one of the industry’s biggest conferences.

A few days later when I arrived back in Cape Town, I realized that everything was truly gone with the flames. 

The fire investigators determined it was caused by a short in one of our downlighters under the wooden walkways on the second floor, something so small and seemingly insignificant, but it had destroyed everything we’d built.

All the things that had moved with Ashley and me from office to office, things that had been with us for over 30 years. A cleaning company had already come in and totally cleared out the office 100%. Everything was rubble.

The things I was most upset about losing were my portfolios from when I started my first company in my early twenties. But they were all just material things, things that will always have a place in my heart and head and don’t need to exist in a material space. 

My wife had been trying to get me to understand the concept of minimalism, and to be honest, I actually felt relieved that my world was cleared out and the clutter was gone.

It was time for a new approach.

Rebuilding From Scratch

We very quickly had to order new computer equipment. Many of our staff are designers and developers who work on high-powered towers with several large monitors each. We were lucky we had some backups, but not enough. The challenge was on to rebuild.

We did lose lots of work, and some clients had to seek other solutions to meet their own deadlines. It was the first and only time we ever faulted on delivery during our 27+ year history. But we pushed on, hired a ton of monitors, bought new equipment, and moved into a shared working space, one of those new-age WeWork scenarios.

During that period after the fire, we had to be guests in a larger space. It was actually a great experience that provided a new dimension for our team, and it would take months to rebuild the office properly.

Since we owned our office, I dealt with insurance and brought in builders to get to work. It was my job to rebuild, and despite the heartbreak, it was actually a fun experience. Eight months later, we moved back in.

But the smell was still intense for a long time post-fire.

It took many more months to get the builders back to redo all the ceilings, the reason for the lingering smell was that the insulation in the ceilings hadn’t been removed and had to be completely redone. 

So we all had to move out for a few months, again.

Rebuilding the Team

The reality of the situation showed our resilience, but we didn’t just have to rebuild our office, we had to rebuild our team. 

We lost a couple of team members to a company that poached them during our worst hours. Not only did we struggle to maintain our clients, but we lost staff and our office simultaneously.

But here’s where the magic of long-term relationships revealed itself, Vegas Kings was extremely blessed to have some amazing clients, clients we’ve worked with for over a decade and more. They stood by us, gave us grace when we needed it most, and today we have an even stronger bond with them. 

Relationships are everything!

Even though our management were on edge, we pulled it together, and we found some great new hires who stood by us through the transition. These new team members didn’t just join a company, they joined a family that had been tested by fire, literally!

The Phoenix Effect

Not only did we move into a fresh new office, but we had a fresh team and a fresh new outlook too. We survived one of the toughest periods in our company’s history, and the lessons learned were invaluable:

Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back, it’s about bouncing forward. 

The fire forced us to evaluate everything from our processes to our team dynamics, our physical space, and even our client relationships. We emerged leaner, more focused, and surprisingly more innovative.

Material history isn’t company history. All those portfolios, awards, and conference memorabilia we lost? They were symbols of our past – but our real value, our knowledge, relationships, and expertise built over three decades, that couldn’t be burned. That lived in our heads and in our reputation.

Crisis reveals character. Both in our team and our clients. The people who stood by us during those difficult months became our strongest relationships. The ones who jumped ship taught us valuable lessons about loyalty and partnership.

Minimalism breeds clarity. Starting fresh, without the clutter of decades, forced us to focus on what truly mattered. Our new office wasn’t just rebuilt, it was reimagined for modern workflows and team collaboration.

The Unexpected Gift

Looking back now, that fire was one of the best things that happened to Vegas Kings. We’re stronger, more agile, and more focused than we’ve ever been. Our new team members brought fresh perspectives that complemented our decades of experience. Our rebuilt office reflects our evolved thinking about work and collaboration.

Sometimes you need to lose everything to gain clarity about what really matters.

In the iGaming industry, we talk a lot about risk management, but this taught me that the biggest risk isn’t the catastrophe itself, it’s how you respond to it. Do you panic and scramble, or do you reframe it as an opportunity to build something better?

Three years later, that Amsterdam conference moment, when my narrative shifted from networking to crisis management, became the catalyst for our strongest chapter yet. The industry taught me to always be ready to pivot. I just never expected to pivot from ashes.

The lesson I learned is that sometimes the best way to innovate isn’t to improve what you have – it’s to start completely fresh and build something better than what was lost. In business, as in gaming, the house always wins when you know how to play the long game.

“The Power Play by Moshe Adir” is released weekly on the Vegas Kings website and LinkedIn. Drawing from nearly 30 years of experience in design and development for online gaming, Moshe shares exclusive industry insights, lessons learned, and behind-the-scenes stories from the evolution of iGaming. Stay tuned for fresh perspectives from one of the industry’s OG!