The sports betting industry has grown rapidly in recent years, fueled by changing regulations, advancements in technology, and a rising demand for realtime interactions from consumers. For many fans, in-play betting adds another dimension to how they can engage, making them feel closer to the action. When you then consider the increasing number of global followers many teams now have, it’s easy to understand why global revenues are projected to continue expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 10%. To sustain this growth, data providers and betting companies face a key challenge: consistently ensuring fast, low latency delivery of data and services, even as they scale operations to meet growing demand – every fan needs to receive the same data at the same time.
Low latency - the rapid transmission of data with minimal delay—plays a crucial role in the sports betting ecosystem. A single delay in odds updates or live bet placement can impact user retention and create financial exposure for operators. This challenge becomes even more pressing as companies expand into new geographies, requiring infrastructure that can deliver consistent, low latency experiences worldwide.
Why low latency matters in sports betting
In sports betting, every second matters. For bettors, much of the appeal of sports betting lies in the immediacy of their interaction with live events. Odds must be delivered and displayed in realtime, and delays can result in missed opportunities for bettors and revenue loss for operators.
If odds are not updated instantly after a critical game event, operators risk users betting on outdated odds. For data providers, failure to deliver realtime data can strain relationships with clients, harm reputation and even have legal implications.
The importance of a consistent user experience
Scaling betting operations isn’t just about onboarding new users—it’s about ensuring these users have the same experience, regardless of location or time.
There are two key infrastructure requirements involved in making this possible: Consistent low latency, and the ability to handle disconnections.
When it comes to latency, users demand the same experience whether they’re betting from Europe, Asia, or the Americas. A lack of consistency can create an uneven playing field – or even cause users to abandon platforms as they develop a mistrust for their data. For both data providers and betting companies, this means achieving similar levels of low latency to clients in diverse geographies. From an infrastructure perspective, this means having a global network of points of presence which devices can connect to and achieve low latency, wherever your users are.
When it comes to handling disconnections and subsequent reconnections, this is particularly key when serving users in markets with unstable network conditions – but is also useful when a user changes data networks or is travelling. For betting operators, they need a strategy to define how a bet is treated if it is placed as a user loses connectivity, and the odds change while they are offline for example – should the original odds be ‘retained’, or should the odds be refreshed upon reconnection? Operators need to consider how to ensure that users with worse network connectivity don’t become ‘worse off’ as a result.
How Genius Sports delivers critical data at a global scale
Genius Sports serves betting companies that demand instantaneous data delivery for live sporting events. Before adopting their current realtime infrastructure, they relied on a traditional centralised system to deliver live data to its betting clients. Maintaining live data performance at low latency and on a global scale, meant locating ever larger and more costly on-premise facilities, close to customers. The system struggled with scalability and latency consistency, especially during high-demand events like global tournaments. As costs and latency demands increased, Genius Sports needed a new realtime solution.
To ensure a consistent user experience, the company switched to a cloud-native distributed infrastructure that could handle their need to reliably serve customers – regardless of their location. By leveraging a WebSocket-based realtime data streaming solution, Genius Sports is now able to deliver on the high expectations of both its B2B clients and the end-users who rely on their ultra-low latency data delivery without the headache of having to manage and scale the realtime infrastructure.
Responding to the growing competition for fan engagement
As the sports betting market becomes more competitive, betting companies are incorporating innovative ways to deliver realtime experiences to keep their customers ‘on-platform’. This means investing in infrastructure that can not only handle the fast-paced nature of betting and provide instant, low latency, updates but also enable the creation of interactive experiences.
Sportsbet faced a unique challenge with its innovative “Bet With Mates” feature, a product allowing friends to pool resources and bet together. A critical component was a chat feature that mirrored the functionality and speed of modern messaging applications like WhatsApp.
Sportsbet’s existing infrastructure could not deliver the rich user experience their customers expected, especially for features like realtime updates, reactions, and comments. As well as latency needs, Sportsbet also had very stringent security and data handling requirements. For Sportsbet, opting for a cloud-native realtime platform that handled both the underlying infrastructure and latency complexities but also made building their chat solution easy, was game changing. The solution saved Sportsbet valuable time and effort compared to them building a basic implementation from scratch.
Low latency, high stakes
It is clear that the sports betting industry is at an inflection point. As regulatory changes continue to unlock new opportunities, companies must rise to the challenge of delivering low latency experiences at scale. Whether it’s B2B providers like Genius Sports ensuring data consistency or B2C platforms like Sportsbet creating seamless user experiences, the ability to operate in realtime, no matter where and when, will define success.
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