Sporting Group
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px" viewBox="0 0 200 150" style="enable-background:new 0 0 200 150;" xml:space="preserve"> <path d="M155.5,103.7c-1.5-3.2-4-6.3-6.1-8.6c2.8-0.7,6.5-1.8,6.5-1.8l0,0c0,0-10.1-1.1-35-23.2C107.7,58.4,97,42.9,97,42.9 l-3.4,3.4c0,0-2.2-1.8-3.4-2.8c-1.9-1.6-4.8-4.5-7.3-7.5c6.3,0.8,16.2,4.3,20.8,6.2c9.7,4.1,39,20.5,39,20.5S113.7,45.4,104,41.1 c-4.9-2.1-13.5-5.6-22-7c-0.3-0.1-0.6-0.1-0.8-0.1c-1.6-1.9-2.8-3.7-3.4-4.9c-2.5-4.9-3.2-9.1-0.3-11.5c2.9-2.5,6.3-2.9,8.8-2.9 c3.4,0,6.1,0.2,8,0.7c5.5,1.3,16.2,4.6,21.4,6.8c4.3,1.8,12.8,6.1,16.8,8.5c4.5,2.7,17.5,11.5,17.5,11.5s-13.3-9.6-17.8-12.4 c-4.1-2.5-12.1-6.8-16.5-8.6c-5.2-2.1-15.6-5.6-21.3-6.9c-2-0.4-4.3-0.7-8.3-0.7c-2.4,0-4.8,0.3-7.3,1.5c-1.1,0.4-3,1.2-4.7,2.1 c-2,1.1-6.1,3.7-8.4,5.4c-1.6,1.2-4.7,3.9-6.2,5.3c-2.3,2.2-7,7.1-8.3,10.1c-1.6,3.4-1.9,6.1-1,10.1c0.5,2.3,1.5,6,6.3,12.5 c5.6,7.5,7,8.3,9.5,10.8c2.1,2.2,5.1,4.6,5.5,4.8l-2,3.7c0,0,12.2,5.6,16.5,7c4,1.3,10.7,3.4,16.6,5c1.3,1.2,5.9,5.3,8.1,7.3 c2.7,2.4,8.3,7.9,10.8,10.4c2.2,2.2,4.5,6.2,5.2,7.4c-5.6-1.3-9.7-2.9-9.7-2.9l1.8-3.3c0,0-14.2-2.5-19.6-3.7 c-5.4-1.2-17.4-5.7-23.1-7.9c-4.9-1.9-16.4-7.9-21-10.7c-3.2-2-12-9.8-12-9.8s3,7.3,4.7,10.1c2,3.4,7.3,10.8,10.3,14.2 c2.8,3.2,9.6,10.7,13.3,13.8c3.4,2.7,11.8,9.5,15.5,11.8c2.2,1.4,9,5.3,9,5.3l2.1-1.4c0,0,6.3,2.2,8.4,2.7c2.9,0.7,8.4,1.1,11.5,0.8 c8.1-0.5,16.6-3.4,20.9-5.6c7.9-4.1,13-8,16.4-13.5C157.8,112.9,157,106.8,155.5,103.7z M153.5,114.7c-2.9,3.6-9.5,4-12.7,4.2 c-4.1,0.2-8.4-0.4-12.3-1.2c-0.3-0.7-1.8-4.1-6.2-8.7c-3.8-3.9-8.1-7.8-10.9-10.1c-1.8-1.5-5.3-4.7-6.9-6.1c2.2,0.6,4.1,1.1,5.7,1.4 c6.4,1.2,14.2,2.1,18.9,2.4c4.4,0.2,13.3-0.1,17.6-0.7c0.5-0.1,1.4-0.3,2.3-0.5c1.5,1.9,3.4,4.7,4.9,8 C155.2,105.9,155.3,112.5,153.5,114.7z" fill="currentColor"/> </svg>
The Sporting Group’s approach is unique in the market. It has developed highly sophisticated proprietary models which, when used by expert traders, deliver highly accurate pre-match and in-play prices, across the widest range of sports available anywhere.
Since it is essential for The Sporting Group to deliver fast and reliable services at scale, the online betting company works with Catchpoint's RUM and active observability solutions to:
- Maintain impeccable service for its site and homepage speeds.
- Benchmark its performance against rival companies.
- Proactively monitor and address any performance issues prior to their impacting users.
- Build a worldwide presence.
Catchpoint provides the industry-leading real user and active observability capabilities that help us maintain the leadership position in our market.
Problem
The Sporting Group – headquartered in London – is one of the world’s leading names in sports betting technology and trading. The Group operates two divisions. Sporting Index, a B2C operation, is the pre-eminent sports spread betting company for gambling on a range of sports and entertainment. The pioneer of sports spread betting, Sporting Index provides the most thrilling live sports betting experience to tens of thousands of customers around the globe who transact 24/7 via the company’s mobile phone applications, websites, and a voice telephony service.
Sporting Solutions is a rapidly growing B2B operation that supplies real-time pricing and sports trading capabilities to sportsbooks around the globe, revolutionizing the outsource sports betting market.
The Sporting Group must deliver fast, reliable services to keep its customer base happy and prides itself on its commitment to delivering an unrivalled level of customer service. However, this can be challenging due to the nature of online betting, where events such as football matches trigger huge peaks in traffic.
A champion for modern infrastructure, Ash Patel, Head of Technology for the Sporting Group, calls upon technologies such as Google Cloud Platform and other sophisticated means to ensure the fastest, most reliable and scalable services. Significant money is at stake if Sporting Index experiences even milliseconds of delay in its service.
“We like to stay as close as possible to real-live action. If in a premiership game, a team makes a goal but we don’t reflect the pricing accordingly and someone places a bet based on stale pricing, it’s a risk to our revenue stream,” he explains.
When Patel joined the company, he recognized its measurement blind spots. While it used tools to understand transactional performance, it lacked insight into the real user experience -- putting the business at a disadvantage.
“Without speed, our best-in-class features are meaningless. We need to be able to benchmark our performance against the competition to continually make improvements. We also need to be able to proactively monitor and address any issues prior to them affecting our valuable B2C and B2B users,” he continues.
Solution
Having used Catchpoint while working for Orbitz Worldwide, now part of Expedia, Patel was quick to recommend the Sporting Group take advantage of both real user and active observability from Catchpoint. He had been impressed on many fronts, from the ease of getting great visibility into site and application performance to the ability to test the user experience through multiple nodes around the globe.
“While other vendors are good at Application Observability – and offer some real user management – their solutions are not as extensive as Catchpoint’s. Plus, Catchpoint’s global observer coverage is vital to us, especially as we look to expand in the U.S. market,” Patel explains.
Results
By empowering the Sporting Group to gain a missing view into its business, Catchpoint has enabled the company to make changes that deliver a better user experience.
“Internally, Catchpoint helps drive the message home that site and homepage speed is essential,” says Patel.
Using RUM alongside active observability supported by multiple observers, Patel’s team can much more quickly and easily narrow in on problems. For instance, it can reduce latency on its site for a better user experience when it sees the negative impact of a weak mobile signal in a certain region.
“The value is in the data correlation between say, traffic spikes and page loads and APIs. By zeroing in, we’ve been able to reduce our mean time to resolve by about 15%.”