Nasdaq offers technological solutions to sports betting operators

Nasdaq has decided to apply technology originating from financial markets to sports betting to make the systems run more smoothly, Axios writes. Nasdaq partnered with horse racing clubs, including the biggest racing club in Asia—Hong Kong Jockey Club. The bets made there amount to 50 per cent more the bets in the entire U.S. This business is so huge that its taxes equal 8 per cent of the Hong Kong government's revenue.

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But the technology the Hong Kong Jockey Club used was dated. Upon the introduction of in-play betting, the old systems turned out to be too weak to support it.

"As an operator, you increasingly need more data and you need it fast, you need bets to run through your system quickly and you need to be able to handle peak times. Well, guess what? That sounds a whole lot like a stock exchange," said Scott Shechtman, head of New Markets at Nasdaq. "So we took this technology called Longitude that was born in the financial markets and had its heritage in trading, and we re-engineered it to work for sports betting because it was based on similar principles."