Continent 8’s end-to-end regulatory cybersecurity services ensure Rising Digital maintains full compliance within the six – and growing – US states in which it operates.
Rising Digital Corporation is a gaming company that develops and publishes slot games, table games, game systems and game platforms. Recognized as the leading developer of Asian slot games in the casino gaming industry, Rising Digital provides games to the major gaming manufacturers worldwide.
Rising Digital required a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) to architect and deploy regulatory compliance programs tailored to the diverse requirements of each interested US state jurisdiction, ensuring consistent, best-in-class security and regulatory standards across all operational states.
Rising Digital selected Continent 8, its existing cloud partner and the leading provider of infrastructure and cybersecurity solutions for the iGaming and online sports betting sector, to lead its regulatory cybersecurity strategy.
In collaboration with Continent 8 and its cybersecurity specialist division, C8 Secure, Rising Digital successfully completed a comprehensive suite of regulatory compliance assessments and services, including:
Rising Digital has successfully rolled out a comprehensive cybersecurity program across multiple jurisdictions, including Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – as well as the Canadian province of Ontario – delivering compliance with state-specific requirements. In addition, Continent 8’s regulatory cybersecurity expertise has enabled the proactive identification of vulnerabilities and the delivery of actionable insights that fortify Rising Digital’s cybersecurity posture.
By partnering with Continent 8 and leveraging its regulatory cybersecurity services, Rising Digital is strategically positioned to proactively address and surpass evolving compliance requirements. This collaboration ensures a measurable competitive edge with regulators across both forthcoming US state market deployments and established jurisdictions.
Aimin Cong, CEO of Rising Digital, said: “We are delighted to formalize our relationship with Continent 8 for our growing iGaming operations business. With the utmost importance being placed upon compliance, performance and security, we believe Continent 8 is an excellent infrastructure and cybersecurity services partner.”
Patrick Gardner, Chief Security Officer at Continent 8, said: “We are honored that Rising Digital has placed its trust in Continent 8 as its infrastructure and cybersecurity partner as they expand their operations across the United States.
“At Continent 8, we pride ourselves as being a one-stop-shop provider of infrastructure, cloud, regulatory and cybersecurity solutions. Our services enable iGaming companies like Rising Digital to swiftly meet multi-state regulatory requirements, safeguarding their operations while providing peace of mind. We stand committed to setting the highest standards and value for cybersecurity and compliance services within the ever-growing iGaming and online sports betting sector.”
For more information on how to meet your jurisdiction’s regulatory cybersecurity requirements, visit continent8.com or contact sales@continent8.com.
surge in virtualisation costs mitigated
virtual appliances migrated seamlessly
to achieve ROI on migration services
for project completion
Sportingtech is a multi-award-winning provider of turnkey betting and gaming solutions designed for regulated and emerging markets around the globe. The omni-channel platform offers solutions for sportsbook, casino and retail betting operators, with over 10,000 products from more than 100 games providers.
With an ‘all-VMware’ virtualised enterprise private cloud architecture, the post-VMware acquisition licensing changes represented a significant cost burden to the business, up to a 42% increase in virtualisation costs.
In search of an experienced service provider to design, plan and execute a migration to a new, more cost-effective virtualised hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), Sportingtech selected Continent 8 Technologies – a Nutanix Authorised Service Provider and current Sportingtech infrastructure and cybersecurity services partner – to provide professional and managed migration services to deliver the project using the Nutanix AHV virtualisation platform.
There were multiple requirements to be met from technical to commercial, with a requirement for minimal operational impact:
Continent 8 proposed and delivered a solution using Nutanix AHV and:
| 1. Availability | 2. Cost | 3. Speed |
|---|---|---|
Continent 8 created a migration plan and schedule which minimised impact to the customer and maximised productivity. By delving into the customer’s key operational requirements and understanding workload utilisation, this plan minimised the chance of failure or impact. During migrations, user experiences remained unaffected, although Continent 8 provided heightened support availability in case of issue or roll-back. | By migrating, Continent 8 was able to demonstrate: • Zero-change hypervisor licensing fees over remaining term of commitment. | Continent 8 performing the work allowed customer’s operational-focused teams to maintain their regular tasks, enabling the project to be undertaken at speed. From engagement to execution, the project was completed on-time and within budget. Continent 8 utilised project management resources to ensure all tasks were completed in order and key milestones achieved. |
Continent 8 successfully orchestrated a VMware-to-Nutanix migration, transitioning to a virtualisation platform that ensures predictable, manageable and lower costs, while circumventing VMware’s 42% increase in licensing fees. The project was executed with minimal-to-zero disruption to Sportingtech’s operations and users, delivering a seamless end-to-end migration experience.
“We are always looking for ways to enhance the solution we build for our customers and to keep costs down. Working with Continent 8, who constantly push to provide efficiencies, cost reductions and value-added expertise, made good sense to us. They continue to be a valued partner and managed to deliver the project on time with no service interruption for us or our customers, which is critical.”
Michael Jack, Chief Technology Officer at Sportingtech
“Continent 8 is able to use its experience with VMware, Nutanix, private and public clouds to provide professional as well as managed services to customers, enabling them to focus on core revenue-generating operations. Being able to demonstrate such a significant saving and ROI will be of interest to many enterprises in today’s market. It’s thanks to the experienced and highly qualified project and cloud engineering staff at Continent 8 that we were able to successfully complete this project, while earning Sportingtech’s trust to manage their critical operational infrastructure.”
Justin Cosnett, Chief Product Officer at Continent 8
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Following the release of the National Indian Gaming Commission’s (NIGC) Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) report, Jerad Swimmer, Regional Sales Director at Continent 8 Technologies, provides a mid-year report on the state of tribal gaming in 2025.
On July 31, the NIGC published its annual GGR report, highlighting a record-setting $43.9 billion in revenue for FY 2024. This achievement reflects a 4.6% year-over-year increase, representing growth of $2 billion, with data collected from 532 gaming operations run by 243 federally recognized tribes across 29 states. In the NIGC press statement, Acting NIGC Chairwoman Sharon Avery remarked:
“This year’s GGR reflects not only the resilience of the tribal gaming industry, but also the dedication of tribal leadership in preserving and growing this important economic driver for their communities. The continued success of Indian gaming is a testament to the strong tribal governance and the sound regulation that protects the integrity of the industry.”
These figures emphasize the critical economic contribution of tribal gaming, supporting essential initiatives across employment, infrastructure, education and social services within tribal communities. Yet, as the tribal gaming industry’s financial impact continues to expand, so does its exposure to cyber threat actors aiming to benefit from this growth.
Over the past year, the industry has witnessed significant cyber incidents. In April of last year, a tribal casino was forced to suspend its operations following a cyber breach and advised patrons to monitor account activity for potential unauthorized access. In February of this year, one tribe experienced a ransomware attack that disrupted telecommunications and IT systems across multiple tribal entities, including casino operations.
During recent key industry events – including the OIGA Conference and Trade Show, the Indian Gaming Convention and Tradeshow (IGA) and the TribalHub Cybersecurity Summit – our team has also received direct reports of numerous cybersecurity incidents. These events have resulted in a range of financial, operational and reputational impacts for affected organizations. These forums have provided tribal casinos, gaming commissions and government bodies in Indian Country with valuable opportunities to share their cybersecurity challenges and engage with experts on effective threat mitigation strategies.
Given the ongoing and evolving cyber threat landscape, tribal gaming organizations must adopt a proactive cybersecurity posture – operating with an ‘assume breach’ mindset and prioritizing resilience. Robust measures are essential to safeguard infrastructure, player data, critical platforms and preserve tribal sovereignty. Recommended best practices for comprehensive cyber defense include:
As a trusted Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), we partner with tribal gaming organizations – including Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission (TGC), ShowNation, Tachi Palace Casino Resort – to foster a culture of cybersecurity awareness, strengthen organizational security posture and ensure long-term operational resiliency.
Continent 8 provides comprehensive, multi-layered threat prevention, detection and response solutions to secure your tribal organization’s digital assets in the face of evolving cyber threats. For more information on how Continent 8 can support your cybersecurity initiatives, email sales@continent.com or fill out our Contact Us page.
Also, be sure to listen back to our Tribal Talks: Cybersecurity Unlocked podcast series. Each episode delves into new stories, insights gained, best practices and key developments that are shaping the future of tribal casino gaming and cybersecurity.
number of games accessible to B2C operators
transactions per second that need to be secured
critical cybersecurity issues identified
Global iGaming aggregator leverages Continent 8’s Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) cybersecurity services to securely connect B2C operators to over 16,000 games from more than 160 providers.
Alea is an award-winning leader in the field of online gaming, with a decade of experience in the industry. Alea aggregation platform handles over 21,000 transactions per second, with bank-level security, full regulatory coverage and local insights that helps their customers move faster in markets like Brazil, South Africa, Spain and beyond.
Alea is one of the industry’s most rapidly expanding game aggregators. By utilising a single API integration, Alea offers customers access to over 16,000 games from more than 160 providers, simplifying technical complexities and enhancing operational efficiency. The security and reliability of these game APIs and integrations are vital to Alea’s operational integrity.
To address the evolving cybersecurity challenges associated with a rapidly growing network, Alea engaged Continent 8 to conduct a thorough assessment and evaluation of their cybersecurity framework through a comprehensive Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) service.
Alea’s coding platform comprises over 100 microservices leveraging diverse technologies, databases and queue systems, presenting a significant technical challenge in securing all connections. Additionally, Alea processes over 21,000 requests per second, necessitating the demonstration of successful transaction management. With a complex aggregation platform, Alea aimed to ensure and demonstrate their status as a secure and robust game aggregator provider.
Continent 8, along with its specialised cybersecurity division, C8 Secure, conducted the cybersecurity audit. They employed their Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) service to perform a thorough security evaluation of Alea’s entire digital infrastructure, providing a complete view of their attack surface area.
The VAPT service from Continent 8 and C8 Secure enabled Alea to safeguard their API, code and services against vulnerabilities such as broken authentications, cross-site scripting (XSS), sensitive data exposure and SQL injection. As a result, the cybersecurity audit identified no critical issues within their aggregation platform.
The comprehensive VAPT assessment allowed Alea to detect potential internal and external IT vulnerabilities, enabling them to prioritise and implement security improvements to reduce risk exposure, thereby assuring their customers of a secure and reliable platform.
Patrick Gardner, Chief Security Officer at Continent 8, presenting Eduard Fumás, Chief Technology Officer at Alea, with their VAPT completion certificate.
Eduard Fumás, Chief Technology Officer at Alea said, “At Alea, security is at the core of everything we do. Our commitment to creating a secure, robust and scalable API solution sets a new standard in the iGaming industry, where data protection and system integrity are critical. Partnering with Continent 8 has been an important step for us in proactively safeguarding our platform and reinforcing the trust our partners place in us. This collaboration ensures that we continue to deliver a reliable, secure API experience to our clients. We’re proud to work with a partner that shares our dedication to cybersecurity excellence.”
Patrick Gardner, Chief Security Officer at Continent 8 said, “Alea’s three principles of security, scalability and robustness resonate with Continent 8. Given the number of APIs Alea is using, their proactive approach to assessing their business and guaranteeing security for its partners is imperative.
“It’s great to be supporting Alea; we encourage all businesses in this industry to take the cybersecurity threat seriously.”
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) service enables the independent gaming commission to test IT infrastructure for vulnerabilities
Continent 8 Technologies, the leading provider of managed hosting, connectivity, cloud and cybersecurity solutions for the tribal gaming industry, supports Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission (TGC) with its proven Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) services.
The Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission is the independent tribal gaming regulatory authority established in 1993 under Chapter 16 of the Cherokee Code of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI).Charged with the duty to ensure fairness and integrity of the gaming activities within its facilities, the commission enlisted Continent 8, and its cybersecurity division, C8 Secure, to conduct pen testing.
The VAPT service provides a comprehensive security assessment of an organizations infrastructure and applications. Often mandated by regulation, it helps organizations measure the real-world effectiveness of their security controls and incident response capabilities. Additionally, the service provides actionable insights, including prioritized recommendations and industry best practices to address identified vulnerabilities and strengthen overall cybersecurity posture.
Emra Arkansas, Executive Director at Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission said: We are sincerely grateful to Continent 8, especially Patrick Gardner, Anthony Engel and Jerad Swimmer, for their partnership and recognition of our ongoing cybersecurity initiatives. The Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission remains firmly committed to protecting not only our critical infrastructure but also the sovereignty that underpins our regulatory authority. In an era of growing cyber threats, safeguarding Tribal IT systems is more than a technical priority, it is a sovereign responsibility. With Continent 8s trusted expertise, we are proud to set a higher standard for cybersecurity in Indian Country, ensuring our operations remain secure, resilient and self-determined.
Patrick Gardner, Chief Security Officer at Continent 8 said:In response to todays evolving cyber threat landscape, the Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission is working to establish a new standard in cybersecurity and we are proud to support this important initiative. Their proactive efforts to safeguard critical infrastructure reflect a deep and ongoing investment in cybersecurity resilience.”
Jerad Swimmer, Regional Sales Director at Continent 8 added: “It was a pleasure collaborating with the Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission in conducting a comprehensive evaluation of their IT infrastructure. Their team has shown a tremendous awareness of the escalating cybersecurity challenges within the tribal gaming sector. It is encouraging to see both enterprises and regulatory authorities actively enhancing their cybersecurity measures.”
For more information on how Continent 8 can support your cybersecurity initiatives or to schedule a no-obligation Cybersecurity Readiness Consultation, contact Regional Sales Director, Jerad Swimmer, at jerad.swimmer@continent8.com.