In 2022, Continent 8 Technologies launched the Gaming Exchange, an exclusive community for iGaming businesses, allowing them to connect faster and more securely than through the standard internet, without requiring additional configuration.
In this blog, Justin Cosnett, Chief Product Officer at Continent 8, explores the product’s latest updates, its benefits and the future development plan. An important update is provided for Public Cloud customers – read on for more information!
The foundation: What is the Gaming Exchange service?
Gaming Exchange is a private internet service that allows Continent 8 customers to connect directly to other Continent 8 customers via a virtual private network (VPN) through the company’s MPLS backbone network, bypassing the public internet. This type of service enables customers to share traffic at the lowest possible latency, ensuring secure and private communication.
Can you highlight some of the most recent product updates?
Our current and new cloud customers will be pleased to learn that Gaming Exchange is now included as part of their Public Cloud platform, further differentiating this industry-leading service. Consequently, all Public Cloud customers will be included on Gaming Exchange, enjoying most of the service’s benefits – without any increase in bandwidth transfer fees. Note, the Premium Portal is not included as standard.
Customers will benefit from traffic being routed automatically via the quickest path available, whether through the public internet or Gaming Exchange.
Customers won’t have to take any action to benefit from this – Continent 8 will enable iGaming exchange seamlessly during a suitable scheduled maintenance window. This ensures that our Public Cloud customers will soon experience the benefits of private connectivity with other Continent 8 customers.
What are the Gaming Exchange service’s key benefits?
Gaming Exchange is specifically designed for the iGaming and online sports betting market to address four critical challenges.
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Streamlined network access
Gaming Exchange allows various gaming businesses – including aggregators, data analysis providers, games providers, odd feeds, operators, payment gateways, platform providers, regulators, sportsbooks, among others – to connect securely to their operators, brands or each other. This extensive network also helps in expanding businesses reach, forming strategic partnerships and entering new markets.
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Network performance
Gaming Exchange delivers the fastest, most resilient and minimal latency connections, ensuring users benefit from the very best internet performance possible.
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Cybersecurity
Gaming Exchange minimised the customer’s public attack surface area. By enabling connections over a private internet, it eliminates the threat of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, where hackers inundate a network with artificial traffic, causing service interruptions and financial losses.
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Scalability
Gaming Exchange provides flexibility for businesses to scale their operations as they evolve with new technologies and market trends. This type of flexibility ensures long-term success and a competitive edge in a dynamic, fast-paced industry.
Can any customer join and benefit from the service, and if so, how?
Any Continent 8 customer can join. The process is quite simple. For non-cloud customers, all we require is access to a physical port. We can provision it to them to get them onto Gaming Exchange within 24 hours. They will also have access to the Premium Portal so they can start monitoring and analysing traffic patterns and performance to make informed, data-driven decisions.
What is next for Gaming Exchange?
The industry is highly interconnected, and the demand for Gaming Exchange is increasing among gaming businesses – including payment providers and sports betting feeds – who recognise the platform’s privacy, latency, security and networking advantages. We intend to continue and expand these discussions.
We’re also exploring additional use cases for Gaming Exchange. Regulators, for instance, are interested in using Gaming Exchange for monitoring and reporting purposes, whether through data vaults or API access.
From a product perspective, we’ll soon be unveiling our new Content Delivery Network (CDN) and Object Storage services to the market. Both services have the potential to be integrated with Gaming Exchange and the Public Cloud. This integration means customers can access the CDN privately, directing their origin traffic through our network rather than through the public internet.
Gaming Exchange is opening new connectivity opportunities, and we’re happy to explore how it can provide iGaming and online sports betting customers with a groundbreaking private internet experience.
To learn more about Gaming Exchange for your iGaming and online sports betting operations, email sales@continent8.com or complete the Contact Us form.
