Across time the evolution of gambling and gaming has not changed in it core principles, but technology has enhanced and expanded its capabilities across the globe.
Long before the internet, gambling had an inherent traditional nature. It is not a concept that was just launched abruptly as assumed by familiar skepticism. Dating back to the ages of Greek civilisation, bets were placed on the sports competitors in Athens. French and Roman emperors coordinated lotteries to fill their coffers, engage the population, socialisation, and increase the value of money.
Gambling a social notion is associated with an element of raging instinct and uncontrollable urge by compelling humans to step out of their social roles and have an inherent need to play. The amount of money won by players and given to winners is often linked to crime and fraud. This could result in a detrimental repercussion on individuals and the population, especially minors. The effect on social morality and public order are inevitable and this should be a valid reason to curtail the menace.
The current revolution of the world owes its dexterity to the internet. It is a very valuable resource used in all sectors to provide a network for excellent information and communication by interconnecting facilities to improve connectivity and collaborations.
Gambling operators in the 21st century adopted internet use early by leveraging social media for easy transfer of content between people and the development of data hubs. The largest internet gaming company in the world according to market capitalisation is worth $27.25 billion1. As countries thrived on access to coal and steel during the industrial revolution, countries. and businesses can only thrive by leveraging the use of the internet like data centres.
WHAT IS A DATA CENTRE?
A data centre is a system that supplies shared access to applications using a pool of networking, storage setup, and existing industry criteria to improve, telecommunications and storage systems, computer components, and systems. They are vital to the success of a modern business, as they contribute to a solid backup component preventing system failure and security breech.
Information is in high demand in this digital world and internet gamblers would not tolerate a lag, breech, or flow in the information that they need. It is wise for internet gambling operators to harness this opportunity by opening data hubs or centres to serve their users with quicker information that they need thereby reducing latency levels.
The gaming industry is fueled by creatives with innovations that would improve the industry. A redundant data hub would frustrate proposed innovations and hinder the progress of the operators in the industry.
Developers could initially develop obsolete software but as the business expands they understand a need for a larger infrastructural frame to serve the needs of the players. Players could lose interest and progress due to a short period of downtime.
Data centres can be located anywhere in the world, but it is much better if the centre is close to the business. Electricity frequency and natural disasters are key factors for setting up a data centre. The security of the data centre becomes a priority as it gets larger, this makes the installation of on-site cameras, software security, and recruitment of security personnel paramount.
HOW DATA CENTRES HAVE SUPPORTED INTERNET GAMBLING AND GAMING
The largest internet gambling and gaming operators in the world open data centres to increase their value stand in face of competition in the industry.
GAMING INDUSTRY DYNAMICS
Internet gaming sites could encounter a change in the dynamics of the gaming industry. Software developers with a drive to create immersive experiences for gamers quickly recognise the need for demanding infrastructure to convey actual-time updates and curtail gaming traffic.
The facility and infrastructure of the gaming business must be tailored to meet the current needs and expected dynamics in the future. This includes the simple metal servers present in the data centre that improve the development, expandability, and dark fiber connectivity. A more dedicated facility like OVH boxes for providing web hosting and email options and community hosting Multiplayer survival game, Rust was released in early access in December 2013 and fully released in February 2018. It has achieved a player number of over 150,000 in 2022.
The exponential growth of the online game is attributed to the provision of substantial facilities that prevent a lag or downtime when the game is unplayable. On 10th March 2021, Rust made a tweet through its official account confirming a loss in online EU servers during its OVH data centre fire 2. Players lost access to their games as a result. This scenario overemphasises how data centres uphold online gaming. It is important to invest in data centres that are efficient and reliable to prevent any inconveniences.
Backup provisions should be made to cater to emergencies. However, gamers can maintain community-hosted servers to curtail insecurity and lags during downtime due to poor connectivity. Gamers form small communities and through server, modification achieves connections with friends in the community.
CONNECTIVITY AND EXTENDED SUPPORT
According to NPD GROUP, the gaming industry leads the music and movie industry by having a revenue of $57 billion in revenue. The industry is expanding fast and has globally developed by 27% in the United States.
Game creators are innovative in the design and execution of gameplay to keep the gamers engaged earning them sales. Without the backup of a data centre that continually provides smooth connections, the innovative efforts might be futile.
The software developers and the investors must sync with the burning passion sold to the gamers. An update is necessary to keep the gamers anticipating and excited for future changes.
Technical expertise is needed to fulfill the passion of all parties involved and prevent any form of doubt in support and connection. Gamers would not tolerate any form of disruption and they will naturally drift to games with a free flow of connection.
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
The concept of technology is based on developing new intriguing techniques to carry out tasks. New technology is developed to ease the growth of businesses in various industries like music, media, media, gaming, gambling, etc. A conspicuous amount of data is consumed to execute new technology. The newest games use VR and AI technology and this relies on a strong infrastructure for execution.
The next generation of games will be determined by the management features of data centres. The industry should harness the power that data centre facilities possess on game development and game delivery. There has to be a merge of technical ideas and expertise to push the gaming industry forward with technology3
Nintendo, a Japanese gaming company, faced some challenges before the release of the anticipated Super Mario run. Kenichi Takemoto, the Team lead of the business system development group at Nintendo expressed that releasing an online game to over 150 countries was a big challenge without any lag in connectivity. The second challenge was ensuring security to prevent breach of personal-information-protection laws in the different countries where it was to be released.
The game needed a cloud-based infrastructure for smooth world release. The factors considered when a data centre was sought were: its ability to assure sufficient, effective, and efficient resources to cope with game traffic at the time of launch and its ability to comply with the different laws of the countries of anticipated release.
Amazon web services a cloud provider was the data centre contracted for the task. An anticipated increase in server load right after the launch prompted a cloud migration from the start. The data centre provided decreased workload at the operational site and resource needs. The centre also prevented a lag in downtime and it was cost-effective. Nintendo also trusted the data centre because they traced security certifications internationally.
A spike in processing efficiency and a conducive gaming environment was achieved by the company by stationing the configuration in the US region instead of dispersing it to other countries. The technical expertise at the data centre was also concerned with infrastructure design, performance adjustment, and testing of anticipated load before the release. The smooth run of operational services so far can be attributed to the amazing management features of the amazon web services.
Ocean casino resort, located in the heart of Atlantic City New Jersey worth was graced with a data centre by Continent 8 technologies-largest online gambling data centre in the world. Priding in over 20 years of service4, Continent 8 technologies possess a network of data centres dedicated to providing secure and reliable data facilities for gambling operators.
The casino utilises the data centre to reduce disasters and provide security. The data centre located in Atlantic City also provides connectivity to other locations and has a quick link to the other data centre. The facility was set up to provide the necessary cyber security and licensed infrastructure for online gambling operators., especially for sports betting operators.
Using the secured global network allows customer data from various states to be integrated into a particular location, thereby increasing cost-effectiveness and the availability of service to users. The partnership of the casino and the data centre fosters smooth connection and provides online security to gamblers.5
The demand for reliable data centres increases as the internet gambling industry expands. Lease web’s global hybrid infrastructure provides an avenue for strong interconnections for internet gambling operators. The digital world host a vast majority of businesses presently and this includes gambling businesses. Due to the increasing number of jurisdictions and raging regulations, online gambling operations are gradually changing from a perceived illegitimate activity with a condescending tag to a properly managed form of entertainment.
Many countries are beginning to legalise gambling leading to an increase in online gamblers that have to be catered for by internet gambling operators. There is less dependence on the limited number of offshore jurisdictions that served as a conventional gathering of online gamblers.
Data centres provide data hosting services like security products, data storage, cloud, and collocation, etc. Internet gambling operators should improve the setup of infrastructure with DDoS protection which prevents infrastructure attacks, Data centres must possess cloud functionality to curtail unexpected peaks when there are a large number of gamers. The centres also merge cloud services and the operator’s hyper-scale facility to reduce dost 6 .
THE FUTURE OF DATA CENTRES
The amount of data consumed in the world in 2021, according to statistica.com is approximately 79 zettabytes 7. The task to maintain this amount of data during the pandemic when virtually all work was done remotely and the increasing need for emerging technology becomes demanding. The pandemic put more individuals on the internet and significantly emphasised the need for data centres, for the smooth running of technology companies, and for the individual lives during entertainment and school.
The growth of data centres is driven by many factors. There is a shift from the conventional physical appearance at work and remote work since the pandemic. This is a major reason for the growth of data centres. The utilisation of technology to digitalise manually existing processes will increase the use of data and hence the need for more data centres. Also, with the invention of data-consuming processes that are, much more complex than the internet of things, artificial intelligence in the development of games will require more data.
Automation will play a significant role in the future of data centres. They can leverage remote work by redesigning Robotic process automation solutions and artificial intelligence to meet t demanding needs. Data centres of the future will be majorly impacted by edge computing. Edge computing is the type of computing at a location close to a distinct data source reducing data processing at a remote data centre.
Data centres in the future would have less decentralisation of computing power. Partnership with 5g networks is foreseen to improve the development of artificial intelligence by gaming operators. Passive and liquid cooling systems for cooling data centres should also be incorporated.8
Finally, incorporating sustainability strategies is important as businesses become prone to climate change. The increasing demand for data centres would not be reduced but methods to enhance efficiency must be utilised. Methods like decompression of data and data deduplication.