This article was written under the guidance of Michael,
our Senior DevOps Engineer with 10+ years of expertise in this field.
“Attention to detail largely determines the successful realization of business ideas.” This was said by renowned British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson back in the twentieth century. While this statement is certainly important for traditional business and even general IT commerce, in FinTech and Gambling it is simply a foundational principle — one without which a project can be written off immediately. The same applies to data security violations, which we covered in an earlier article, “Where Do Your Secrets Live? Security Architecture in Gambling and Fintech,” published on the BeFund blog.
Properly configured data monitoring does not merely enable timely incident response, as is the case in other industries. It allows problems to be identified before they occur, thereby preventing financial losses, user complaints, and minimizing regulatory risk. These are all critical issues for FinTech and Gambling that can be averted through comprehensive real-time awareness of the project’s status.
Background
The online gambling market surpassed $130 billion in 2025 and continues to grow at 10% annually. FinTech is expanding even faster. Behind these figures lies the reality of the industry: billions of transactions daily, millions of users in real time, and regulators closely monitoring every market participant, determined to penalize those who violate the rules.
The cost of inaction over a comparable period is equally staggering: $1.23 billion in fines in just six months, a 417% increase in penalties compared to the previous year, and a shift in regulatory behavior from reactive (violation identified — penalty issued) to preventive (potential problems anticipated — operations blocked before real harm occurs).
And that covers only cases where FinTech and Gambling projects face regulatory opposition. In reality, losses from poor monitoring are many times greater and stem directly from operational failures: hardware and software issues detected too late, inaccurate assessments of user behavior, unnoticed malicious activity — which is also increasing — and much more.
To summarize: in FinTech and Gambling, it is not enough to simply know that the server is running, users are active, and things are “somehow” functioning. Sustaining a business — not even scaling it — requires thorough knowledge of all current aspects and the ability to anticipate negative changes before they materialize. This is not about comfort. This is a must.
Now let’s get specific.
Technical Infrastructure Monitoring
We begin at the foundational level: the infrastructure that underpins all operations. No matter how sophisticated the software solutions are, they run on hardware. Without adequate awareness of hardware status and capacity, it is impossible to accurately assess the situation, forecast risks, or act proactively. The following components must be monitored:
Infrastructure Monitoring (Baseline Level)
- CPU — Central Processing Unit: the server’s main processor, responsible for executing all instructions, processing data, and running the operating system and applications. Inadequate CPU performance will bring the entire project down.
- RAM — Random Access Memory: a high-speed, volatile component of the server used for temporary storage of data and instructions actively used by the CPU. System performance is heavily dependent on RAM.
- Disk usage — tracking available storage to prevent issues caused by insufficient free space. This may seem trivial — which is exactly why it is often overlooked.
- Network traffic — the volume of data transmitted or received over a given period. Traffic analysis helps understand user behavior and forecast system load.
- Load average — the average number of processes running or waiting for resources (CPU, disk) over specified intervals (last 1, 5, and 15 minutes). Essential for assessing system load.
- I/O wait — the percentage of time the CPU is idle while waiting for input/output operations to complete. A high I/O wait percentage will cause the entire project to slow down.
- Filesystem usage — how much disk space is occupied by files and how much remains free. Helps track disk usage.
- Docker health — detects “frozen” services that are running but not serving users, and Container restarts that relaunch such processes (where the project uses Docker).
- SSL certificates — Secure Sockets Layer: a digital “passport” for a website that encrypts data between the user’s browser and the server, guarantees that personal information (passwords, card details) is not intercepted, and is displayed as a padlock icon next to the site address. Without a valid SSL certificate, most browsers will block users from accessing your web pages.
- Open ports — network ports (logical TCP or UDP ports) that are enabled, active, and ready to accept incoming connections from remote hosts.
- Availability of services — a measure of how operational and accessible a system, service, or resource is to users at any given moment.
Monitoring the above items is not overly complex, but it requires the use of reliable, secure tools capable of delivering accurate real-time information. BeFund specialists can recommend several tools proven through extensive experience in FinTech and Gambling projects:
Application Monitoring (Application Level)
- HTTP 5xx / 4xx errors — server error and client error classes in the HTTP protocol, sent by the server in response to a request when something goes wrong. They help identify whether the issue originated on the user side (browser) or the server side. Each such error in a FinTech or Gambling project risks losing clients and damaging reputation.
- API response time — the total time from when the API receives a request from the client to when the server returns a response. A key performance indicator measured in milliseconds (ms) or seconds. A response under 100 ms is considered good, under 300 ms is average, and over 1 second is poor and frustrates users.
- Slow requests — requests exceeding 500 ms or several seconds, indicating server performance issues.
- Failed jobs — background tasks or processes that terminated with an error and failed to complete. Most commonly occur in background process queues, where tasks are executed asynchronously, or in scheduled tasks (cron jobs).
- Queue size — the number of elements (messages, data packets, requests) that can be simultaneously stored in a buffer or queue before processing. Items that exceed this capacity are typically dropped or queued.
- Cron status — the operational state of the task scheduler, indicating whether it is active, functioning correctly, and when tasks were last executed.
- Worker restarts — the process of stopping and restarting background processes or request-handling processes (workers) in automation systems, task queues, or web servers, in order to clear memory, apply code changes, or recover from errors.
- Memory leaks — a software defect in which a program allocates RAM for its operations but fails to release it after use, causing progressive reduction in available memory.
- Exceptions — unexpected situations or errors that occur during program execution, disrupting its normal flow. These can be numerous and varied.
- Failed integrations — a complete or partial failure in data exchange between connected systems, software, or security tools.
- Webhook failures — situations where an automated notification (HTTP request) sent from one service (e.g., GitHub, Shopify, Stripe) to another upon a specific event fails to arrive or is not processed correctly.
As with the previous section, the following is a list of tested services for monitoring application-level issues:
- Grafana Loki
- Prometheus
- ELK / Elasticsearch + Kibana
- Or specialized services for Laravel logs, NestJS logs, Django logs, and APM tools.
Logs Monitoring
Particular attention in FinTech and Gambling projects must be paid to logs — records in electronic event journals. It is worth clarifying the key distinction between a log and a metric, since metrics are the more commonly used tool.
A metric is numerical data showing system state at a specific moment in time — for example: “CPU load — 80%” at the moment the user checks the dashboard, or “CPU load — 37%” when reviewed five hours earlier.
A log is a detailed text record of an event that includes all relevant information — for example: “2026-05-13 15:23:09 — Database connection error — User X.” It shows the exact time, the event, its subject, and the participant.
Precise situational awareness enables developers and administrators to understand what is happening in the system, detect errors promptly, analyze performance, and ensure security. Therefore, the structure of log records must be carefully designed from the architecture stage, several steps ahead, so that in a critical moment, reviewing a record can answer the following mandatory questions:
- What happened?
- When did it happen?
- Which user was involved?
- In which service?
- What was the request_id / correlation_id (a unique identifier added in microservices to identify a specific HTTP request or action, or to group requests related to a single event)?
- What was the payload (the useful data that was transmitted)?
- Which integration was affected?
- Which transaction was involved?
The following is an approximate technology stack, validated by our specialists, for effective log monitoring:
Logs Monitoring:
APM (Application Performance Monitoring) / Observability:
In summary: we have outlined what to monitor and which tools to use. However, an equally important question remains: who will be responsible, and when. In projects involving large sums of money, high stakes, and gambling operations, monitoring must occur in real time — not in the manner of e-commerce, where checking a dashboard a few times a day may suffice. Much depends on the team members who not only keep a continuous watch on the flow of information from the project, but are also able to respond to problems in a timely manner and resolve them. Better yet — to anticipate and prevent them.
Business-Level Monitoring
The technical component is critically important, but cannot on its own ensure the success of a project. Control must extend beyond performance and uptime to encompass key performance indicators (KPIs) based on analysis of client interactions. This is equally a continuous, real-time process that, in combination with technical monitoring, enables maximum profitability and effective response to threats.
Business-level monitoring focuses on outcomes: it tracks user activity, compares the volume of funds deposited versus withdrawn, evaluates the appropriateness of percentage rates, and much more. It is an integral part of a risk management strategy, ensuring project stability and creating the conditions for scaling.
The following items require constant, unconditional monitoring:
- Number of deposits per minute. Reducing the time interval serves no purpose, while extending it risks missing something important. One minute is sufficient — trust our experience.
- Number of successful / failed payments. Enables tracking of payment difficulty trends and identification of root causes.
- Withdrawal queue. Provides insight into overall user sentiment and allows control over available fund balances.
- Number of pending transactions. Necessary for understanding the state of fund flows, payment activity, and load on the payment system.
- Average payment processing time. No one likes waiting, so this indicator must be improved by every available means.
- Payment provider errors. A high error rate is a signal to seek an alternative provider.
- Number of bets / betting events. Provides insight into user behavior and serves as the basis for forecasting and adjusting future strategy.
- Bonus anomalies. Doubled bonuses or amounts lower than configured may occur. Both situations are unacceptable.
- Sharp decline in registrations. Once a business reaches a stable level, this is an unequivocal negative signal with specific causes.
- KYC/AML verification errors. These unambiguously undermine reputation.
- CRM sync lag. The time interval between when data is updated in one source (e.g., on the website or in the app) and when those changes appear in the CRM system itself.
- Webhook delivery failures. A situation where the sending service (e.g., a payment system) attempts to send an automatic notification (HTTP POST request) to your endpoint (your server’s URL address) but does not receive confirmation of successful receipt.
We have outlined the most important and vulnerable points of business-level monitoring required for stable project operation and timely response to threats. An ideal solution for organizing this process would be the creation of a custom dashboard that consolidates everything needed in a single location.
Profiling — The Best Way to Trace a Problem
In most IT projects, slow performance creates inconvenience but remains tolerable. In FinTech and Gambling, it is fatal. Every transaction delay drives away paying clients, every memory leak threatens a server failure under peak load, and a slow database request queue generates a backlog of waiting — and dissatisfied — users. What is needed, therefore, is not a one-time diagnostic exercise but a continuous practice, made possible through profiling.
The primary task of profiling is to record the execution time of each function (time), how many times a given function is called (frequency), how many resources each section of code consumes (memory), and where a delay occurs within the function call chain. In other words, profiling makes it possible to say: “The problem is right here,” rather than “There seems to be a problem somewhere around here.” The difference is significant.
The most common causes of time or resource loss include:
- Slow SQL query
- Incorrect index
- N+1 problem
- Heavy endpoint
- Blocked transaction
- Deadlock
- Slow external API
- Large payload
- Inefficient queue
- Memory leak
- Overly heavy cron job
- Uncontrolled retry loop
Each of the issues listed above has different solutions, but during profiling the primary objective is to identify the problem in order to prevent its recurrence. To achieve this, the following algorithm of correct actions should be applied to each case:
- Identify the “symptom” of the problem through data monitoring;
- Review event journal records (logs);
- Review analytical metrics;
- Proceed to traces/APM;
- Identify the specific bottleneck — the narrow point in the code where the problem is observed;
- Confirm the problem through profiling;
- Fix the problem;
- And equally importantly — configure an Alert so that the problem does not recur undetected in the future.
Alerting
As a logical conclusion to everything covered above, we turn to the final element of the topic. Having invested significant time and effort in configuring real-time monitoring and assembling a team to observe and resolve issues, the question becomes: what must be done to prevent errors from recurring? The only correct answer is to configure threat notifications.
Alerting is the process of automatically detecting anomalies, failures, or significant changes in the operation of IT systems and immediately notifying the responsible specialists (developers, DevOps engineers, administrators). The key word here is “automatically,” since this reactive monitoring component must operate independently based on previously identified problems. Timely notification can prevent an entire chain of difficulties, save time and money, and in some cases — rescue the entire project.
How exactly a danger notification reaches the responsible person is an individual matter for each business. It may be a dashboard alert, a Telegram bot message, or similar. The one thing that is non-negotiable in FinTech and Gambling projects is that it must happen ASAP — making email or comparable solutions far from optimal. It should also be noted that configuring alerts for everything indiscriminately is counterproductive: it creates noise, and in a truly critical moment, the important alert may be lost in a stream of notifications. Building a relevant alert pool is only possible after proper monitoring has been configured and the situation has been assessed. The following is a list of genuinely critical project events for which alerts are mandatory:
- Payment success rate falls below threshold;
- Withdrawal queue grows for longer than N minutes;
- API latency exceeds threshold;
- 5xx errors are increasing;
- Disk usage > 80%;
- DB connections near limit;
- Replication lag;
- Queue workers stopped;
- SSL certificate expires soon;
- Critical container restarted more than N times;
- KYC provider unavailable;
- Webhook failures spike.
This is what a proper data monitoring and incident response process looks like in FinTech and Gambling projects. At first glance, it may seem complex — but with the support of professionals, all of it is achievable. Moreover, there is simply no alternative: without a competent approach, a project is destined to fail. The BeFund team has extensive experience in these areas and is always ready to help you achieve success.
