Highlights

Expanding the sports betting facilities into the US

Xoomworks Technology worked with a leading provider of online betting products in the US market. Originally active in the fantasy sports market, when legislation allowed online providers to operate across several US states, the company sought to expand into sports betting facilities.

To qualify to operate in the nine US states that currently permit online betting, the company needed to build the infrastructure to provide the regulatory authorities with daily reporting of all its betting activity.

Each gaming authority specifies that data has to be held in the state where the transactions take place. The company’s systems would also need to be certified by the relevant gaming authorities to ensure compliance.

State-of-art data architecture for addressing compliance requirements
Xoomworks Technology had delivered big data projects including real-time analysis of risks and liabilities for Paddy Power, which involved over two billion rows of data covering 50m live bets. The successful delivery of that project and the migration of data to the cloud for the Paddy Power and Betfair merger helped this client select Xoomworks Technology to design and build the architecture and reporting is needed for the US authorities.

The project kicked off in late 2019 and went live in Nov 2020. Xoomworks assigned an initial team of 11 staff to the project, consisting of developers, analysts, quality assurance and project management. Further database specialists were added to the team as required.  Since the go-live, the client has retained two team members to provide support. The solution involved creating a data feed from the online betting platform containing all data related to bets placed by customers in each state. The Xoomworks team incorporated validation and integrity checks to ensure each XML message was stored correctly in the database and had built-in resilience, with redundant servers in multiple locations and automatic failover as standard.

Complex custom-designed reports are then generated for transmission to each regulatory authority at different times for each jurisdiction, usually covering the previous 24 to 27 hours of trading. Some data is aggregated, providing visibility of the status and number of bets placed, settlement details, their value, and the margins applicable.

Xoomworks created the state-of-the-art architecture and hardware landscape to cope with the huge volumes of data involved and to comply with the requirements of each US state. Xoomworks’ familiarity with the betting business and experience in big data projects ensured the solution met the requirements and could be built quickly. Technologies employed included Java and Kafka with a MySQL database. 

Collaboration with Gaming Laboratories International (GLI) ensured the automated testing carried out by the development team met the required standards. With Xoomworks cooperation, GLI issued the necessary certification for the software to operate in the USA.

The solution was critical for our client to operate in the US regulatory environment. Xoomworks industry knowledge and the trust placed in it to deliver a robust solution has enabled the company to take advantage of the relaxation in betting legislation in some US states and maintain its position as the number one online betting provider in that market.

The database created by this solution also creates value by surfacing betting behaviour and trends, a vital tool for business planning and marketing.

Key Benefits

State-specific reporting requirements delivered. Xoomworks’ solution provides the functionality needed to comply with local gaming bodies legal requirements, enabling it to operate online sports betting in the US.

Data integrity assured. Sophisticated validation and integrity checks ensure data is transferred and stored accurately.

Resilient big data solution. State-of-the-art architecture and processing capability provide assurance that the solution can process significant volumes of data without interruption.

Marketing insights. The vast database created by this application provides detailed intelligence about the behaviour of betting customers and trends, invaluable for business planning and marketing.

Contact us to discuss how a flexible partnership can support your technology requirements and business growth.