Turnkey Sportsbook partnership extended until end of 2027 as LeoVegas Group continues gradual migration to in-house sportsbook, which now has access to Kambi’s premium Odds Feed+ solution
Read More In the race to deliver seamless and engaging sportsbook experiences, speed is everything. This article explores how low latency sports betting – from data feeds to bet settlement – can enhance UX, protect margins and secure long-term competitive advantage
The user interface is one of the central aspects of successful delivery in sports betting. Presenting the sportsbook to the end user with a front-end that is consistent with the core brand, or offering them a personalised landing page complete with their favourite sports and markets, can be an important first step on the road to long-term retention and success.
However, the user interface is just one component part in the challenge to offer each and every end user the best possible experience. Latency, lag-time, delay – whatever name given to it, high levels of hold-ups in navigation, bet placement and bet settlement can be a real obstacle to an operator’s ambitions.
What types of latency can impact a sports betting operator and its customers?
Minimising latency will be a big factor in any sportsbook’s live betting strategy. There are several types of latency a sports betting operator must consider, each with their own unique implications for that strategy.
Live delay – latency between placing a bet and the bet being accepted – is potentially chief amongst them when considering the UX, but latency in the data feed or updating odds can impact not only the UX, but also expose the sportsbook to the risk of arbitrage.
Simply put, latency in any part of the betting process can have a significant impact on the sportsbook’s bottom line – not only for the bet in question, but also for long-term share of wallet as customer frustration drives them to place their wagers with other operators. Dissatisfied customers will take their business elsewhere, leading to a reduction in the sportsbook’s revenue and competitive edge. High latency can cost business, and reducing it is critical to the sportsbook’s long-term sustainability.
How low latency unlocks competitive edge in sports betting
Maintaining low latency is foundational to offering end users the most cutting-edge sportsbook features. The complexity of the offering is growing, with innovative new live markets such as Kambi’s ‘Ace in Game’ offer on tennis – a sport where more than 80% of sportsbook turnover is live – and the expansion of live bet builder is further intensifying this shift towards more complex bet offers. No sportsbook wants to find its feature set being left behind due to issues with latency that it’s underlying tech-stack and modelling is unable to reconcile.
Furthermore, sports betting does not exist in silo. The expectations of the modern customer or app user is that all apps and website will operate at high speed, and this is perhaps especially true in sports betting, where delays during high-stakes sporting moments can generate extensive frustration for the end user.
The aforementioned risk of arbitrage is also important to consider when prioritising the reduction of latency. A lack of synchronisation between the live odds and the probability of an outcome due to shifting in-game circumstances opens the bookmaker to the risk of its pricing inaccuracy being exploited, impacting margins and limiting the potential to generate meaningful revenue. A sportsbook with high synchronicity between data ingestion, odds creation and bet placement can alleviate this risk, and drive enhanced market share through both stronger bottom line and more customer-friendly experiences.
The complexity of the offering is growing, with innovative new live markets such as Kambi’s ‘Ace in Game’ offer on tennis – a sport where more than 80% of sportsbook turnover is live – and the expansion of live bet builder is further intensifying this shift towards more complex bet offers.
The Kambi approach
Kambi dedicates resources and strategic decision-making processes to ensure that latency is minimised and the quality of the user experience is prioritised, whether it’s our Turnkey Sportsbook or low latency odds feed.
On a practical level, the process of reducing latency is a multi-faceted one. Working closely with authoritative sporting data feed providers, and those that maintain close relationships with tournament organisers is the starting point. Several of our partners have exclusive access to live data for certain competitions, helping to significantly minimise live delay.
We have honed our trading tools to ensure these feeds can be integrated as closely within the value chain to our proprietary pricing models as possible, so that our systems can react as soon as the data feed is updated with fresh game state information.
On top of this, we are also constantly in the process of building smarter logic into our live models – enabling us to keep certain markets open in game situations where other sportsbooks would shutter them, closing them off to customer activity and thereby putting up barriers to customer engagement where none need to exist.
This ongoing work is achieving consistent results: on average, Kambi has seen a year-on-year reduction of approximately 10% in our average live delay. With Kambi powering the sportsbook, bettors are able to get their bets on more quickly, leading to greater likelihood of repeat bets or that customer returning consistently.
Make achieving low latency a cornerstone of your sports betting strategy
As underlined above, low latency is of huge importance to successful sportsbook delivery. For customers, removing friction in the bet placement process through low live delays and shortened time between bet placement and acceptance means superior UX, while for the sportsbook itself low latency reduces risk, drives margins and protects the ultimate health of the bottom line.
