History
Founded in 2004 by a quartet who had prior been developing software for online gaming, Combination’s first mission was to introduce and leverage the server-based model for land-based casinos for the purpose of exploiting synergies vis-à-vis online casinos.
Slot machines in America
With strict regulations dictating that the physical gaming machine “client” be the master, this posed some challenges. But of course also opportunities, like moving away from manual setup and configuration, which traditionally required actual physical presence at every machine. We would instead make software distribution and configuration a remote batch operation with all the benefits that entails. During this journey we also notably built a bespoke game engine that catered to the unique demands of the domain – such as performance, regulatory and player experience. The rigorous requirements imposed by needing to obtain Nevada compliance added many challenges to this project, and favoured a “measure twice, cut once” approach to our embedded software (and hardware).
Sportsbook
Transitioning to Sportsbook, with its cloud native, high load environment basically meant doing a complete 180, in terms of applied skillset and approach. With our MVP-oriented, data-driven, fail fast approach and lending itself well to framework-laden “borrowing”, it represented a transition to pretty much a polar opposite software development methodology. This also gave us the opportunity to prove to ourselves what we believed in – that our perhaps greatest strength is our ability to tackle any challenges and adapt to new situations.
The founders are still very active in the company. And we are still working together with the biggest players in the industry, delivering vertical technology solutions and doing R&D. Our customers are large multinationals, and our collaborations span across every continent. Nevertheless, we remain a small and nimble outfit – which works well for responding to change and which we believe will carry us forward on both current and future challenges.