Latency and Liquidity: The Tech Stack of In-Play Betting

The evolution of in-play betting is defined by the technological battle to minimize **latency** and manage **liquidity** in real-time. Historically, bettors exploited the delay between live action and bookmaker updates—a practice known as **courtsiding**. **Key Technical Developments:** * **The Data Supply Chain:** The industry relies on a duopoly of data providers (Sportradar, Genius Sports) that use human scouts and, increasingly, **computer vision** to transmit data faster than TV broadcasts. * **The Bet Delay:** To mitigate latency arbitrage, sportsbooks introduced a programmatic delay (5–10 seconds) on bet acceptance, allowing algorithms to reject wagers if a material event occurs during the countdown. * **Automated Pricing:** Manual trading has been replaced by **Managed Trading Services (MTS)**, which use Markov models to instantly re-price thousands of derivative markets via **WebSocket** push technology. The current industry standard revolves around **Official Data** rights, where sportsbooks pay premiums for the fastest, league-sanctioned feeds to maintain the integrity of their pricing algorithms.