A safe bet for online gambling

A recent report from KPMG indicated that the online gambling sector can expect to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6% in 2017, with the global market valued at £30.6bn. In Britain, online gambling accounts for 33% of all gambling activity, the largest sub-sector within the industry.

This rapid growth in popularity means that online gambling operators must offer exceptional performance to users as well as being able to withstand high surges in demand, for example, during high profile sporting events.

The data centre serves as the backbone of an online gambling service, providing a robust and flexible platform to process, manage and store vital data. Downtime can be extremely expensive, costing online gambling businesses up to £30,000 per minute, so operators must rely upon data centres to keep their websites and applications running smoothly.

A high-performance data centre is essential to avoiding these issues, but the number of data centres has risen exponentially in recent years, so it may be difficult for online gambling operators to know which facility is right for them. Because of this, there are some key factors that online gambling operators must consider when selecting a provider.

Connectivity Data centres must have exceptionally fast, fibre connections to key Internet Exchanges to ensure a seamless, unhindered experience for the user. As online gambling so often relies on instant information, such as a goal being scored, it is essential that the websites operate at exceptional speed, with no lag or downtime.

Online gambling operators must opt for a data centre provider that can deliver maximum uptime and low latency, and has the fastest possible connections to the key Internet Exchanges, locally as well as internationally.

Technology

Data centre technology has changed and evolved rapidly in recent years. High Performance Compute is the latest key innovation to emerge in the data centre market, which enables data centres to stack racks of servers contiguously without requiring additional power or cooling.

This can enable an online gambling operator to optimise their rack space without significant increases in the cost of their data centre services. Online gambling businesses must take advantage of this technology, as not only does it offer them much higher performance at a lower relative cost, but also greater efficiency and the flexibility to grow their operation.

Scalability

The growth predicted in the online gambling market may mean that many online gambling businesses need to rapidly increase their capabilities in order to handle additional traffic and users.

Online gambling businesses must select a data centre provider that has the infrastructure, power headroom and cooling capacity to enable them to deploy additional servers to meet this demand.

However, the fluctuating nature of online gambling and its surges in demand mean that operators need the flexibility to move up and down depending on usage. Data centres that can offer a rate based on power consumed per kW hour ensure that online gambling businesses only pay for the services that they use.

A high-performance data centre is essential to delivering a seamless, top quality online gambling experience. Online gambling operators must therefore partner with a data centre that can offer them the connectivity, technology and scalability they need to operate as efficiently as possible, with the capacity and infrastructure to handle the shifting demands of the online gambling industry and to enable operators to expand their business.