SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
iGameMedia and Theo Technology have unveiled a new ultra-low latency streaming solution to the sportsbook market, signing bet365 as the products debut client.
The product will go live with the Stoke-based international bookmaker in May 2023, utilising a single API integrated with sports rights holders to map out vendor event identifications into one singular ID.
As the solution’s first client, bet365 – along with its sports rights agency partner Infront Bettor – will deliver its entire content portfolio in ultra-low latency across iGameMedia’s iGame One platform.
A bet365 statement read: “We’re thrilled that in collaboration with our partners at iGameMedia, we can continue to provide the best In-Play customer experience on our industry-leading product.”
iGameMedia has been a long-standing partner of Infront Bettor, which has seen the firm cooperate with bet365 on previous streaming and content distribution efforts.
The betting division of Swedish sports marketing firm Infront, Infront Bettor signed a partnership agreement with bet365 back in February 2023.
iGameMedia was also involved in this deal, aiming to reduce latencies ‘to around one second’, whilst its new solution with Theo Technologies further strengthens its ties to both bet365 and Infront.
iGameMedia’s Chief Executive, Mike Cobain, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have partnered with Theo Technologies, who’s HESP protocol is in our view, the only viable solution to ultra-low-latency at the required scale and at the required cost acceptable to the industry.
“We have been delivering sub-second socket-based streaming to the B2B industry for almost 15 years, but what is different about HESP is that it is segment-based, meaning it can be delivered using highly scalable existing HLS-orientated CDNs.
The solution features a fixed latency of two seconds from source, with the duo having aligned data and video to enhance the user experience, whilst a sub-second latency service will be ‘made available where required’.
Steven Tielemans, CEO of Theo Technologies, commented: “iGameMedia and Theo’s new ultra-low latency sports streaming solution will be a game-changer for the sports betting industry.
“Rights owners can deliver their sports content to sportsbook operators in less than a second with this solution, while sportsbooks will provide a massively enhanced experience to their users. We are thrilled to partner with the iGameMedia team to deliver this ground-breaking solution to the market.”
