GR8_TECH: Making load speed a baseline expectation

Igaming is investing heavily in more engaging, personalised experiences, but all of that depends on how quickly those experiences reach players. GR8_TECH recently announced a major front-end rebuild that has brought average load times down to 1.72 seconds and Lighthouse performance scores to 90-95. The company benchmarked its performance against more than 15 leading igaming B2C brands.

Here, GR8_TECH chief technology officer (CTO) Edward Smyshliayev discusses the wider performance challenge behind the update, why the technical migration was necessary, which markets stand to benefit most and what operators should expect from platform providers as speed becomes a baseline.

EGR: The industry is super focused on AI, personalisation and content. But is igaming investing in what players see, while underinvesting in what determines whether they see it at all?

Edward Smyshliayev (ES): Yes, I think sometimes the industry focuses too much on what the player sees but not enough on whether the experience is fast and smooth enough for them to see it at all. If a page takes five or six seconds to load on a mobile, you could lose the player before the recommendation or personalised content even appears.

Of course, you need both: smarter experiences and a strong technical foundation. But speed comes first because, if the platform is slow, everything you build on top of it becomes less effective.

EGR: Why is technical migration the right fix for the industry’s load speed problem?

ES: Technical migration is the right fix because load speed is a technology problem. But I wouldn’t advise everyone on the market to jump straight into Qwik or any other bleeding-edge technology. You need a really strong engineering team and to invest heavily in technical expertise.

We have almost 500 engineers in the company, so we had the capability to do that. Even for us, it was a hard year and required a lot of R&D, effort and investment. We’re very happy with the choice and we’re already seeing good results, but it wasn’t easy.

So, for most operators, the better approach is to choose a strong technical partner that has already gone through that process, learned the lessons and can provide the right technology and guidance. That way, you can solve the speed problem without having to take on all of that technical risk yourself.

EGR: GR8_TECH claims its platform is now the fastest in the industry. What benchmarking backs that up and what was it measured against?

ES: We benchmarked about 15 leading igaming B2C sites across different parts of the market, including traditional sportsbooks and casinos, as well as crypto-native casinos. Also, we focused on mobile, because that is where the majority of igaming traffic sits, and we measured under typical device and network conditions.

Internally, we rely primarily on real-user data from devices, looking at metrics such as Speed Index, FCP and LCP. That lets us compare the new platform directly with our previous performance using data from actual users.

For competitor benchmarking, we used external tools, most often Catchpoint, to test other igaming platforms across different devices, regions and conditions. That gave us a consistent way to compare our performance against competitors. So, the claim is based on both real-user performance data from our own platform and external benchmarking against other operators and platforms in the market.

Only about one in three platforms we tested met our definition of a good mobile load speed, below 3.4 seconds. More than 40% were above 5.8 seconds. Our updated platform reached a 1.72-second Speed Index and an average Lighthouse performance score of 90-95. The best-performing platforms we benchmarked were still more than 10 points behind on Lighthouse. Also, we tested performance across Latam, Africa, MENA, Europe,and Asia, so this was not due to a single market or network environment.

EGR: Which markets would benefit most from a faster-loading platform?

ES: I would say first of all Latin America, MENA, parts of Asia,and Africa. In Europe and the US, mobile and wi-fi coverage is generally quite good, so even if your infrastructure is further away, users can still get a relatively fast experience. But in developing markets, we see much bigger performance degradation. It’s not enough to have servers only in Europe or the US; you really need infrastructure closer to those users.

The challenge is that even the biggest cloud providers don’t have equal coverage everywhere. You might have a good presence in one country but not another, like in certain parts of South America. Yet we still want to provide the same experience we offer in Europe.

This migration helps globally, but the biggest gains are in markets with weaker connectivity or less cloud infrastructure. In Europe, we might see around a two-fold improvement, while in some more distant markets, we’ve seen improvements of up to sixfold. That’s a huge difference because it means we can finally give users in those locations an experience much closer to what players already get in Europe.

EGR: If speed stops being a differentiator and becomes a baseline expectation, what should operators demand from platform providers next?

It’s for the platform to stay fast while still giving operators enough flexibility to compete. Operators need to be able to change layouts, promotions, content and user journeys quickly, without involving engineering every time. They should be able to do that without affecting performance. So, for me, speed and flexibility need to come together. Speed becomes the baseline, but flexibility is what allows operators to differentiate and keep improving the product for their players.

Edward Smyshliaiev is the chief technology officer at GR8_TECH, bringing over a decade of expertise in software engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning and large-scale digital transformation. Known for delivering scalable solutions to complex challenges, Smyshliaiev is passionate about shaping high-performance technology teams and future-ready platforms. At GR8_TECH, he leads the strategic development of the company’s platform architecture, information security and technical governance, driving innovation and global growth.