Simplebet expands in-play sports betting offerings with live streaming powered by Amazon IVS

For many sports fans, the glass-to-glass latency when streaming sports can be as long as 45 to 60 seconds. While the biggest setback from these delayed streams is often the occasional rogue phone notification, spoiling a critical moment in the game, video latency can fundamentally alter the dynamics of sports betting. Behind the scenes, betting operators want to increase engagement through all-in-one, interactive video content that reduces churn as fans move between screens. As in-play sports betting industry continues to grow in popularity, low-latency solutions are critical to delivering an even playing field for fans and sportsbooks alike.

Sports betting enthusiasts have likely interacted with solutions from Simplebet, even if they may not realize it. With customers like DraftKings and Caesars, Simplebet’s core business-to-business offering calculates odds in real-time, providing a data feed that transforms every moment of a sporting event into a betting opportunity for customers, as well as end-to-end services for sportsbooks.

Founded in 2018, Simplebet is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which enables its developers to focus on innovation, instead of infrastructure management. As part of Simplebet’s expansion to provide end-to-end services for sportsbooks, the company began leveraging Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS) to bring its customers low latency live streaming capabilities.

“Live streaming sports is inherently complicated, but we knew this was the next step to take in advancing our solution,” explained Trevor Dalglish, Simplebet Director of Product. “Our low latency sweet spot is three seconds, as that provides the right balance of near real-time without compromising betting activity, and that’s easy to achieve with Amazon IVS.”

Small bets, big engagement

In early 2023, betting startup Betr approached Simplebet to create an end-to-end sportsbook focused on in-play gaming. Also known as microbetting, in-play gaming enables fans to wager on play-to-play moments of a sporting event, like whether a certain play will be called, instead of just the end-game results. By effectively gamifying the entire event with microbetting, in-play gaming deepens fan engagement among sports bettors, and live video further enriches the experience. In-play with live streaming is the next evolution, creating a single app experience of live content embedded with real-time in-play lines.

Along with integrating Amazon IVS, Simplebet partnered with the Indoor Football League (IFL) to live stream games via the Betr app. By August, the live streaming workflow was in production, bringing fans a low latency single-screen viewing and sports betting experience.

“This isn’t our first foray into video; we previously had a video product that we had to manage ourselves and it was a struggle. Amazon IVS has been so much more reliable,” Neumann shared.

“We want to focus on the core parts of our business, not video. With Amazon IVS, we just set it, forget it, and know it will remain stable,” added David Bernazal, Simplebet Technical Lead.

All-in on AWS

In addition to Amazon IVS, Simplebet leverages Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon CloudFront content delivery network, Amazon Route 53 domain name system (DNS) web service, and AWS Database Migration Service, among others. AWS Local Zones can confine betting and gaming workloads to reside within state borders and allows betting and gaming customers to comply not only with state gaming regulations, but with the Federal Wire Act. For example, Betr viewers in geographies where gambling is not allowed can still access the app as a free-to-play experience, with the betting features disabled. On the backend, Simplebet directs activity to the appropriate AWS resource location.

“Every state is different and has its regulations. Relying on AWS has helped us expedite standing up new resources that are compliant, and we can dedicate our efforts to creating new features,” Dalglish concluded. “We’re always floating ideas around about how to advance Simplebet, and AWS is a big part of that. In general, video will have an increasingly large role in the future of sports betting and iGaming; it’s becoming a requirement for engagement, and companies that are quick to incorporate video into their experiences are going to win out.”

Simplebet’s journey with Amazon IVS has revolutionized in-play sports betting, providing fans with seamless and engaging live experiences. The integration of low-latency live streaming has not only eliminated the frustration of delayed sports streams but has also deepened fan engagement through microbetting. As the sports betting landscape evolves, Simplebet remains at the forefront, driven by innovation and powered by AWS.

Learn more about low latency live streaming with Amazon IVS, or check out AWS solutions for real-money gaming.

To learn more about Simplebet and its solutions for sportsbooks, check out the Simplebet website.