Fanatics Betting & Gaming hits 60% faster builds to support rapid scale

Summary

“Are we making the customer experience better?” 

It’s the question the Fanatics Betting & Gaming team asks every time it enters a new market, launches a product, or ships a feature.

That relentless focus on quality runs through everything it does, helping it set a new standard in betting and gaming while rapidly scaling its online Sportsbook and casino offering.

Mobile is at the forefront of that strategy, with its Sportsbook app now available across 23 U.S. states and reaching approximately 95% of the addressable U.S. online sports betting market.

To meet its ambitions, the team needed a mobile CI/CD solution that could help it scale faster to meet demand. By switching from GitHub Actions to Bitrise, the company cut build times by ~60%, freeing engineers to create the immersive experiences sports fans expect.

Challenge

Before Bitrise, Fanatics Betting & Gaming maintained separate Android and iOS repositories, alongside a shared Kotlin Multiplatform SDK that built a framework used across both codebases. 

“We were doing a lot of our mobile development in the shared foundation layer, but every change meant rebuilding a new version of the SDK and waiting for it to complete, which added more friction and slowed us down.”
_{Ryan Cochrane,  Senior Director of Engineering, Mobile Platforms at Fanatics Betting & Gaming}

To bring everything together centrally and make it easier to build and manage changes across projects, Fanatics Betting & Gaming decided to move to a monorepo setup (single code repository).

At the same time, the mobile team began evaluating alternative CI/CD solutions. As Ryan shared, “We were using another solution, but it wasn’t working for us. One of the biggest issues was not having access to the latest machines, particularly for iOS. Android was manageable, but on iOS, the Kotlin Multiplatform linking process could take quite some time, especially as the project scaled.”

Build times were becoming a major challenge, taking on average up to an hour and half to get a build out to TestFlight.  

Feedback loops were also continually delayed. Delivering improvements quickly is always a top priority for Fanatics Betting & Gaming, but its inefficient setup was preventing the team from iterating and shipping updates to customers fast. From a customer experience and competitive standpoint this was not ideal.

“If we hit a production bug and needed to move quickly, we’d fix it, but then still have to wait 90 minutes for a build to go out.”
_{Ryan Cochrane, Senior Director of Engineering, Mobile Platforms at Fanatics Betting & Gaming}

The team was also eager to get access to the latest macOS machines to improve build speed and efficiency, but they were not available through its existing CI solution.

Combined, these challenges started to have a negative effect on the company’s delivery speed and developer experience. As Ryan explained, “We were constantly waiting on builds to complete. They could take a day or even a whole weekend, it was not sustainable.”

With ambitious growth plans ahead and more products on the horizon it was time to find a better CI/CD solution, as Ryan explained, “The tipping point was really the build times we were dealing with and not having access to the latest M4 machines. That’s what pushed us to start looking for a new solution.”

Fanatics Betting & Gaming’s key requirements:

• CI/CD built for mobile
• Access to the latest runners (e.g. latest M4 macOS machines)
• Strong documentation for self-service
• Proven mobile expertise and support
• Powerful integrations, including compatibility with Fastlane plugins

Solution

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Several members of the Fanatics Betting & Gaming mobile team had used Bitrise for personal projects and had consistently positive experiences. So when the team began evaluating solutions, Bitrise went straight onto the shortlist. 

“I’d always enjoyed using Bitrise for my personal projects, as did a number of our team, and so it immediately came to mind when we started looking for a new CI/CD provider. Obviously our needs at Fanatics Betting & Gaming were on a different scale but we had confidence it would be a good fit.”
_{Ryan Cochrane,  Senior Director of Engineering, Mobile Platforms at Fanatics Betting & Gaming}

The team conducted a proof of concept (POC) with several providers, and Bitrise stood out for a number of reasons, including its mobile-first focus, strong support, competitive pricing, and seamless integration with GitHub.

"As a mobile specialist, Bitrise really stood out. On top of that, its seamless integrations with Fastlane plugins and the tools we already use made it a great fit."
_{Ryan Cochrane,  Senior Director of Engineering, Mobile Platforms at Fanatics Betting & Gaming}

The migration to Bitrise went smoothly overall. As Ryan shared, “The Bitrise product is great to work with and the documentation is solid. Everything is pretty much laid out on how you would want to do something and if it's not there you can work with the team to figure out a solution or create some new documentation.”

One factor that made migration easier was the fact the team had already completed a proof of concept (POC) with Bitrise. As Ryan explained, “As we already had the pipelines in place from the POC we just needed to productionalize them and make sure they were ready. It took a bit of time and there were a few things we had to get right like making sure all the testing was complete and that the CI integrations were hooked into our GitHub repo, and stable before merging new pull requests (NPRs).”

Support from the Bitrise team throughout helped the team get up to speed quickly and resolve any challenges along the way. As Ryan noted, “Obviously we did some stuff on our side to educate our team on Bitrise. But for any questions we couldn’t answer we had a lot of support from Bitrise to help us figure things out and get everyone on board without any issues.”

Results

“Bitrise has given us more time to think more strategically about our future vision and what we want to accomplish. We don’t have to worry about how to get new features to customers or all the distribution complexity that comes with that. Bitrise has let us shift the focus away from the day-to-day processes to the customer’s needs, which has been incredibly valuable. It’s something I don’t think we would have found with another provider.”
_{Ryan Cochrane, Director of Engineering, Mobile Platforms at Fanatics Betting &Gaming}

[list:checklist]

• Up to 60% faster build times (90 minutes to 35-40 mins)
  With Bitrise, Fanatics Betting & Gaming has significantly  reduced build times, enabling faster iteration and delivery of features. As Ryan shared, “Faster builds mean we can get releases into customers’ hands sooner, which is critical.”‍
• Faster iteration and more time for innovation
  This increase in speed allows teams to ship new features and fixes more quickly, especially in critical moments.
  “One of the main reasons we moved to Bitrise was to let engineers focus on building features and improving the experience, without worrying about pipelines and distribution. Bitrise handles most of that now,” shared Ryan.‍
• Improved developer experience and autonomy
  ‍The move to Bitrise has also made it easier for Fanatic Betting & Gaming’s developers to get up and running, without needing deep CI/CD expertise.
  “The biggest win has been the improvement in developer experience. The speed and ease of use really stood out, and even those new to CI/CD can quickly self-serve,” shared Ryan.‍
• CI/CD they can rely on 24/7
  Reliable pipelines mean fewer issues and less day-to-day friction, giving developers more time and headspace to focus on what matters.
  “With Bitrise, it just works. There’s much less stress day to day, which is huge. If no one’s talking about pipeline issues, that’s a great sign,” shared Ryan.‍
• Confidence to deliver when it matters most
  Bitrise gives Fanatics Betting & Gaming the reliability and confidence to raise its game, respond to customer feedback in real time, and deliver the experiences fans now expect. 
  “Every minute matters when it comes to big events like the Super Bowl. With Bitrise, we can get fixes and improvements out quickly and feel confident everything is ready to go, which is super important,” shared Ryan.

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The future

With a reliable CI/CD foundation in place through Bitrise, Fanatics Betting & Gaming is turning its focus forward on innovation, growth, and raising the bar for the experiences its expanding fanbase now expects.

“Looking ahead for mobile, it’s about refining our products, listening closely to customers, and building that into the experience. Over the next six months, we’ll continue learning, iterating, and seeing how our products evolve from there.”
_{Ryan Cochrane, Senior Director of Engineering, Mobile Platforms at Fanatics Betting & Gaming}

What’s next for the partnership? With an ambitious roadmap ahead, the company plans to expand its use of Bitrise to include more of its growing portfolio of apps.

“Our partnership with Bitrise is really important for us. We’ve got a lot of products out there, and we’re looking at bringing more into Bitrise that we haven’t fully integrated yet. This will help to further enhance our pipelines. That’s really exciting, so there are definitely a lot of great things ahead for us with Bitrise.

Summing up what the Fanatics Betting & Gaming team love most about Bitrise, Ryan shared, “The support is excellent. Onboarding is seamless, and the pricing structure is competitive. The capabilities you get with Bitrise far surpass anything else out there. It’s the culmination of all these key things that makes it an easy choice.”

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