“Multiple tier 1 operators are actively evaluating Radar, and we’re getting great feedback”

 Can you share the origin story of Radar? What motivated you and Coby Berman to start this venture in 2016?

Radar’s founding team met at Foursquare, the location-based social app, in NYC in 2012. So we’ve been in the geolocation space for over a decade.

We started Radar with a vision of “location infrastructure for every production and service.” Our goal was to build a geolocation platform that was full-stack, developer-friendly, privacy-first, and cost-effective.

Today we process over 100 billion API calls per year from over 100 million devices across hundreds of enterprise customers, from retail to logistics to gaming.

Radar has established itself as a leader in location data infrastructure. How do you see this technology evolving specifically in the iGaming industry?

Over the past few years, we’ve had hundreds of conversations with leaders in the gaming industry, from tier 1 operators to trusted vendors to regulators to compliance experts. Virtually everyone agrees: viable, cost-effective geolocation alternatives are needed. Radar is here to meet that need.

Most online gambling operators rely on a single geolocation vendor: GeoComply. Some operators are even contractually forbidden from evaluating alternatives.

Lack of competition generally results in unfair prices, lack of innovation, and lack of redundancy. But with Radar’s entry into the gaming space, this is changing.

In the future, we think most operators will adopt more developer-friendly, cost-effective geolocation solutions like Radar. Or they’ll have a “waterfall” of multiple geolocation vendors, like most operators do for KYC.

Privacy and security are paramount, especially in iGaming. How does Radar ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA while providing precise location data services?

From our founding, we’ve been committed to leading the industry in privacy, security, and compliance.

When it comes to security, we’re SOC 2 type II-certified and we undergo regular third-party audits and penetration tests.

When it comes to privacy, Radar provides extensive data access, data deletion, and data minimization controls to help our customers comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

What are the most common use cases for Radar’s geofencing and location tracking technology in the iGaming sector?

The first is geolocation compliance. iGaming and online sportsbook operators are required to verify that a player is in an allowed jurisdiction, and verify that they’re not spoofing their geolocation. This is fundamentally a geofencing use case, and Radar is the global leader in geofencing.

Beyond geo-compliance use cases, Radar can power other use cases like location-based messaging, on-property app experiences, address validation and mapping, and more. For example, Everi uses Radar for location-based messaging, and PrizePicks recently switched from Google Maps to Radar for address autocomplete.

What are the key benefits that iGaming companies can expect by integrating Radar’s Maps Platform into their apps and websites?

There are three key differences between Radar and geo-compliance incumbents.

First, cost. Radar is 50-90% less expensive than alternatives. Because we’ve spent the last decade optimizing our infrastructure, we can operate sustainably at this price point. We also price differently than incumbents. Our pricing is based on monthly tracked users, not location pings, making it easy to forecast costs, check a player’s location as often as needed, or enable new use cases.

Second, latency. Because we can check a player’s location as often as needed at no additional cost to operators, we can cache geolocation tokens and almost always have a fresh one available. This means near-zero latency on location checks after initialization.

Third, developer-friendliness. Radar’s documentation is open and our SDKs are open-source, making it easy for developers to integrate geolocation for the first time or migrate from an existing solution.

With the increasing adoption of mobile gaming, what challenges do you foresee in location-based services, and how is Radar preparing to address them?

Expect geolocation requirements to get more complicated over time. More states will come online in the coming years, each with their own geolocation requirements.

In states where iGaming and OSB is already legal, expect geolocation regulations to get more complicated. As fraudsters get more sophisticated, states will mandate more controls to thwart them.

What achievement of Radar are you most proud of, and what are your plans for the coming years regarding the iGaming industry?

I’m proud of the amazing product, team, and customer base we’ve built over the last 8 years. We enter the gaming space with a proven platform trusted by hundreds of enterprise customers across industries, ready to shake things up.

As our roster of gaming customers grows, we have three priorities in 2024.

The first is continuing to invest in our product, especially our back office and reporting capabilities. Multiple tier 1 operators are actively evaluating Radar, and we’re getting great feedback about where existing solutions are falling short.

The second is continuing to invest in state gaming licenses. We’re ready to operate in a dozen jurisdictions, we’ve filed applications in a dozen more, and we expect to be licensed as a vendor or supplier in all remaining states where OSB or iGaming are legal by the end of 2024.

The third is continuing to build awareness and grow our brand in gaming. Expect to see us at G2E, ICE, and SBC Summit Rio over the next year. And expect some big announcements ahead of Radar IRL, our annual flagship conference, in September.