The Wonderful World of Data Migration
By Joshua Alguire, Development Manager/ iGaming Engineering.
Light & Wonder provides a player account management (PAM) platform to the iGaming industry which handles everything from administration and finance (such as player account registrations, deposits and withdrawals) to regulatory compliance (such as responsible gaming tools) to marketing (such as promotion tools). The PAM has custom configurations tailored to the iGaming operator requirements. In the event of a merger or acquisition, the PAM can also cater for the migration of player data between different platforms.
On the week of 17 June 2022, over sixty-two thousand (62,000) active players were migrated from one large operator’s platform to another, due to one casino acquiring the other. This blog will discuss the player journey during this data migration.
A successful data migration requires collaboration between many internal teams as well as third parties, the operator and regulators.
To facilitate player data migration, a development dynamic link library (DLL) is temporarily installed on the “Production” environment. This new library exposes a powerful API used to import and modify player data.
The data migration event occurs in four phases:
- Input player data is parsed and validated;
- Input player data is compared with existing player data to identify duplicate players;
- New and duplicate players are migrated into the new operator’s player database; and
- Post migration validation and report generation.
Input Validation
The first phase of the migration is to validate the incoming data to remove any players who should not be migrated or whose data is clearly invalid. Note in our example, the data from the outgoing operator was from a different platform, which meant some players would have data that would be invalid for the incoming operator.
1,586 players were removed from the database (because they were either in self-exclusion or still in their cool-off period from being excluded).
An additional 443 players were removed because they either had names that were too short (the incoming operator’s platform required names to be at least two characters long) or had a mobile number that was being used by another player.
At the end of the input validation phase, 60,369 players remained in the database.
Duplicate Account Checking
The second phase of the migration identifies any incoming players who already have accounts with the incoming operator. In this instance, no new account would be created in the incoming operator’s platform for the incoming player. Instead, their account balance from the outgoing operator would be added to their account with the incoming operator.
PAM Validation
The final player data validation comes during the import into the incoming operator’s database itself. As new accounts are created, checks are made against existing players to ensure data consistency. During this process, an additional 3,345 players were rejected. Most due to having emails or mobile numbers that were already in use in by players in the incoming operator’s database.
Reporting
Once the migration is finished, a comprehensive accounting of all the players must be done. This includes the before and after account balance of all duplicate players, to ensure the balances were applied correctly. As well as details on which players could not be migrated and why. Based on these reports, the regulator will assess whether the player data integrity has been maintained and that all player cash is accounted for, before allowing the operator to be brought back online.
Any player who could not be migrated for whatever reason was also reported back to the outgoing operator, who then refunded any player balance directly.
Finally, below is a top-level summary of the player journeys from the outgoing operator to the incoming operator:
In conclusion, a migration event of this scale requires rigorous attention to detail and oversight. For this reason, Light & Wonder devotes months of planning, collaboration and contingencies preparing for each of these events. All to ensure a smooth execution and make all the long nights and effort worthwhile.
I hope that this blog has provided insight into some of the complexities involved with a large player data migration.
The opinions expressed in this blog post are strictly those of the author in their personal capacity. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Light & Wonder or of its employees.
WE’RE HIRING
Find out more about life at Light & Wonder and the roles we are looking to fill: https://igaming.lnw.com/careers/
