Transitioning from Direct Provider Integrations to Aggregators for Faster Growth in iGaming
- iGaming
- CI/CD
- Betting
- Front-End
- Back-End
- API Development & Integration
Overview of Our Client
Our client is a recognized online betting and casino operator seeking to expand into some regulated markets. The platform historically was anchored to direct integrations with individual game studios, each requiring its own API, commercial agreement, and operational support. As the product grew, the model became expensive to maintain and too slow for competitive expansion. The company needed a way to speed up the release of new games, simplify compliance and vendor management, and stabilize platform performance.
Core Problem
Direct integrations held back the addition of new games and getting centralized technical support from each aggregator because each provider required:
- 1-6 months of technical work, legal review, and financial onboarding
- Continuous monitoring and updating for each unique API
- Separate management of SLA and issue resolution
This way, the situation was that with dozens of providers on board, the team couldn't fully concentrate on market expansion and keep up with market expectations for new releases and exclusive titles. The client wanted a simpler model that would give them the opportunity to concentrate on long-term brand growth by utilizing top-tier aggregators for the support of their game catalog, as well as by lowering the operational complexity.
Main Goals
The fundamental goals of this project were:
- To speed up the addition of new games and providers in a number of markets.
- To lessen the operational burden of numerous APIs, contracts, and financial processes.
- To raise the game services' stability and uptime.
- To improve competitive positioning through quicker releases, exclusive mechanics, and enhanced promotional tools.
- To reduce reliance on individual providers by creating redundancy and risk diversification.
Project Overview
We moved the whole platform from direct provider integrations to a multi-aggregator architecture. By integrating with 4 leading iGaming aggregators (Pragmatic Play, EveryMatrix, SOFTSWISS, Evolution), the client earned immediate access to hundreds of top game studios through standardized APIs and coordinated technical support.
Meanwhile, the switch to aggregators didn't signify totally giving up direct integrations. The content was planned to be delivered in such a way that 75-90% of the content would be sourced from 4 main aggregators for speed, variety, and cost-saving; and 10-25% of the content would be sourced from direct integrations with top or niche providers who could offer exclusive terms or the premier content that was not accessible through aggregators.
- Region: Global
- Industry: iGaming / Betting
- Timeline: Continuous rollout over several months
Solution
The migration was done stage by stage to keep the system stable and the rollout flawless in different markets. The end result was a platform that no longer had to maintain dozens of fragile integrations and could therefore give more attention to brand growth, marketing, and player retention.
Product Highlights
- The capability to create cross-provider features like universal bonuses, search, tournaments, and filtering.
- Centralized analytics with simplified reporting from each aggregator.
- Reduced dependency on individual providers.
- The ability to switch traffic through alternative aggregator routes in the event of provider or region failures has been implemented.
- Aggregators provided strong SLAs, assured uptime, and offered 24/7 professional support.
- Due to their volume, aggregators could negotiate discounted royalties and thus pass the savings on to operators.
- The client might compare commercial terms for the same provider coming from different aggregators.
- The opportunity to A/B-test performance by channeling games through various aggregator connections.
Technical Stack
Integration Layer
- Custom middleware that converts the aggregator's data to the client's internal schema.
Backend
- Shared service architecture that allows multi-brand routing.
Monitoring
- Enhanced logging and alerting for aggregator SLA oversight.
Deployment
- Automated CI/CD pipelines supporting platform-level releases and aggregator integrations, with environment-specific configurations for multiple aggregator staging and production setups.
Core Team
- Solution Architect: Oversaw integration strategy and fallback scenarios.
- Backend Engineers: Built and maintained individual aggregator integrations and handled migration logic.
- Frontend Developers: Created user-facing interfaces for aggregator dashboards and monitoring tools.
- QA Engineers: Tested thoroughly game integrations, performance, and compliance.
- Project Manager: Managed project planning, coordinated teams, and ensured timely delivery across all phases.
Outcomes
The platform could accomplish content expansion very quickly after the transition to a few major aggregators, thus it got immediate access to more than 100 top providers and was able to increase its library from hundreds to thousands of games in a matter of days rather than months. This change significantly reduced the operational burden and allowed the technical team to keep only a few stable connections. Meanwhile, the platform improved its position in the market and attracted more players due to the early access to trending titles, exclusive content, jackpots, tournaments, and customizable game features for promotions.
In particular, we can emphasize the following achievements:
- The content library significantly grew compared to the previous rate.
- Integration time shortened from several weeks to a few days.
- Operational and financial overhead became much leaner.
- Better uptime, faster issue resolution, and risk diversification.
- Improved player retention through a continuous stream of new content and exclusive mechanics.
- A resilient architecture for supporting international expansion.