# How to choose a sports betting data feed: 8 things to check

The data feed is the engine of a sportsbook: if prices are late or results are wrong, nothing else matters. Use these eight checks before you sign with a feed provider.

## 1. Coverage and market depth

Count sports, leagues and countries — but also look at depth on a real match. A top-league fixture should carry hundreds of market lines across result, totals, handicaps, halves, corners, cards and player props. Check the lower divisions and the sports your market loves, not just the headline leagues.

## 2. Delivery speed you can measure

Ask how long a price takes to travel from the source to your platform, and ask to see it measured on live data, not quoted. Updates should be pushed as they happen, and only the markets that changed should be sent.

## 3. Reliability and recovery

Connections drop. What matters is what happens next: missed messages should be recovered automatically, and your platform should be told to resync so that no stale price stays on screen. Ask how the provider behaves during its own maintenance.

## 4. Results and settlement

A feed is only half of the job without results. Look for automatic settlement of every market, clear rules for voids, postponements and retirements, corrections that trigger resettlement, and a way to settle manually when needed.

## 5. Delivery methods

REST for loading state — fixtures, markets, results — and WebSocket push for change is the combination most platforms need. Check message formats, filtering by sport and league, and whether a full snapshot is available after reconnecting.

## 6. Configuration per brand

If you run several brands, each should be able to choose markets per list and sport, detail categories, featured leagues and priorities — and hide markets or close matches without code changes.

## 7. Security

Public keys for your front end should only work on your domains; secret keys for your servers should only work from your IPs. Settlement data should never be exposed to browsers.

## 8. Test before you sign

A serious provider lets you work with real data before signing:

- A staging environment and keys.
- Documentation with real payloads.
- Live coverage you can inspect yourself.
- A named technical contact.

## The Maatgaming feed

Our feed covers more than 30 sports, 2,000 leagues and 1,490 market types, delivered over REST and WebSocket with automatic results and settlement, recovery and resync, and per-site configuration. Our coverage page shows live matches, prices and delivery time measured in your browser — so you can check before we talk.

## FAQ

### What is the difference between pre-match and live odds feeds?

Pre-match feeds update prices for upcoming events; live feeds update in play, with markets suspended at key moments. Most sportsbooks need both.

### Do we need a separate results feed?

Not if the feed delivers results and settlement for every market. Check that voids and corrections are included.

### How do we measure feed latency?

Compare the source timestamp on each odds message with the time it reaches your platform, using live traffic over several days.

Published 2026-10-23 by Maatgaming.

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Source: https://maatgaming.com/eninsights/how-to-choose-a-sports-data-feed · Maatgaming · 2026-10-27