SOFTSWISS and Servers.com Executives Discuss Entering the iGaming Market

When an iGaming operator opens in a new market, the outcome usually goes one of two ways. Either the move becomes profitable, or it creates unnecessary complexity. How to prevent that complexity was the main topic of a conversation between Sergey Kastukevich, Technology Director at SOFTSWISS, and Nick Dvas, Operations and Product Director at iGaming infrastructure provider Servers.com.

The two executives met at the Tech Race Summit organized by SOFTSWISS last month. The discussion also covered the perspective that operators seeking international growth should adopt. According to Dvas, regulation is among the first issues to resolve before entering a new market. Some countries require data to remain within their borders, which pushes operators toward a geographically distributed infrastructure.

Sports betting is the clearest example of this challenge. The system needs to be distributed enough to offer users a competitive experience, yet coordinated enough to prevent opportunities arising from timing differences between locations. If odds are updated at different moments, geographic distribution can create arbitrage opportunities.

Kastukevich said every operator should include its infrastructure plan from the very start of its new market entry strategy. If the issue is considered later, each new jurisdiction can bring an additional data environment and operational process. In his view, the goal is not simply to set up a local installation, but to keep the customer experience consistent while keeping the platform manageable.

In recent years, cloud technology has been widely presented as the way to simplify infrastructure. Dvas, however, noted that the cloud can also raise costs. As artificial intelligence sharply increases the amount of data generated, processed and retrieved, storage, computing and data transfer can become extremely expensive in the cloud.