Varak began by noting that the pandemic has prompted an acceleration towards digital gaming and digital casinos. Concurrently, supply chain issues started arising for gaming console manufacturers, which has further accelerated the shift towards online.
Providing the specific example of Singapore, Vartak explained that the Singapore Government has recently established the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore Act in a bid to keep up with current technological and gambling trends; as well as respond more adequately to emerging gambling products, and take a more holistic and coherent approach to gambling policies.
The Act has been effective since 1 August 2022 and establishes the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) as the single regulator for all forms of gambling in Singapore.
One challenge for the gaming industry that he touched upon is the prevalence of Smart TVs in 2022 which, along with comprising applications such as Netflix and YouTube, now often also include gaming apps.
“This means gaming is now being beamed right into your home, so you can imagine the uptick that will happen in the usage of gaming from here on in,” said Vartak. “But this also means there will be intense competition to bag the limited user time.”
While there is increased competition for user time, Vartak explained that there is now a lesser need to buy consoles, as customers can game directly from their home.
Conversely, however, he noted that gaming from home means the games themselves – whether it be tennis or badminton for example – have results that keep fluctuating, and so online betting related to those sports must cater for this extra burst of demand in platform usage.
While there is increased competition for user time, Vartak explained that there is now a lesser need to buy consoles, as customers can game directly from their home
“This means the response time which is being beamed to your home for a betting portal has to be less than 30 milliseconds for you to bet favourably when a game of tennis, for example, is progressing,” noted Vartak.
He added that HD games will arrive in the near future, which will push up Cloud usage and thus Cloud costs. Moreover, in terms of the hugely important aspect of regulation, portals and websites must also have proper security measures and proper auditing in place, while tracing of payment information must also be provided as real money is involved.
On the “multifaceted” topic of operational resilience, which begins by monitoring everything, Vartak said: “Everything you have in the casino; the slot machines, the air conditioning, the cameras, essentially everything that has an IP needs to be monitored.”
Once you have all the data, he explained, you can then start analysing it.
Monitoring performance, ensuring reliability, planning for scalability, enabling flexibility and ensuring security must all be considered when it comes to the operational resilience of gaming, he summarised.
