Virtual horse racing and dog racing were the pioneers of the virtual sports betting revolution. This betting choice encompasses a wide range of bet types and features contemporary realistic graphics, giving players a quick and continuous gambling experience. This post examines the benefits and drawbacks of virtual sports for your sportsbook operation.
The amount of virtual sports betting has increased by 30% as a result of the COVID epidemic. Even when live sports are once again available and sportsbooks are operating normally, a few operators have witnessed the benefits of including this rich market in their omnichannel strategy. But is online gambling a viable choice that will draw in a new client base, i.e. bettors? Let us examine this “product” from the inside out.
Let Us Explain Virtual Sports
Sports simulations using computer-generated players and teams are referred to as virtual sports. To achieve maximum involvement, computer-generated graphics are influenced by actual sporting events and produce realistic sights and movements. Virtual sports effectively offer a simulated sporting feel that is virtually as authentic as the real thing and can be played at any time of either day or night, which has increased interest in and the need for virtual sports sites.
For almost every sport, you can find virtual sports commodities. These include popular events like horse and dog races, football (soccer) and American and Canadian football, numerous motorsports, and much more. Each of them offers comprehensive and original betting. Instead of being based on actual events, like physical or real-life games, virtual sports are fully decided by the result of a random number generator (RNG), a computer software that generates results at random that correlate to a specific event. For this reason, virtual sports are viewed as the sports betting equivalent of slot machines.
Sports Simulations, eSports, and Virtual Sports – What Differentiates Them From One Another?
Sports simulations and eSports are frequently mistaken for virtual sports. Despite the fact that they employ comparable technologies, they actually differ significantly.
Virtual Sports
Virtual sports are competitions that are totally generated by computers and produce virtual competitions.
Games in virtual sports simulations happen quickly and last only a few minutes. There are many betting alternatives, but they change frequently, particularly with live betting. The most recent outcomes, statistics, and trends for virtual leagues in sports like basketball and football are also available to players.
Sports Simulations
Sports simulation uses a software framework to manage all of the action, similar to virtual sports. The distinction between both of these is what factors the software considers when producing game or racing results.
Sports simulations are made to resemble actual teams, athletes, and events. Using their genuine stats, real players from real teams are simulated. Your consumers can wager on their preferred teams and base their wagers on their understanding of player performance and the abilities and shortcomings of a team. With generic athletes and teams, virtual sports produce a clean slate. This offers you complete control over determining the winning team’s odds.
Esports
Esports differ from virtual sports in that human players direct the action in the former. Esports are competitive video games in which users take control of the game characters and typically compete on a live streaming platform like Twitch. Instead, virtual sports are totally managed by software.
Fighting games or shooting games, such as Counter-Strike titles like Global Offensive (CS: GO), and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like League of Legends (LoL), are frequently the subjects of the most well-attended eSports competitions.
Benefits of Online Sports Betting
Because virtual sports platforms are affordable, they are gaining popularity among sports lovers. This rising trend is being tapped into by well-known sportsbooks like FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, FOX Bet, Caesars, BetRivers, and PointsBet. Virtual sports betting has the following benefits over regular sports in addition to giving users another way to wager.
Continuous Play
Real games have a lengthy “lifespan”. This is a nice thing for fans who want to watch their favorite teams face off against rivals simply for entertainment purposes. However, it means that fewer wagers can be placed on sporting events in a particular time frame and that wagerers have to wait more time to see whether they have won.
Since virtual sports games are played for shorter periods of time and have fewer time restrictions, you can place more wagers each day.
Availability
You can only play traditional sports according to league schedules. Actually, no sport is performed all year round; certain sports only take place once a week and for a limited number of weeks each year.
With virtual sports, participants may take part in exciting contests at any time of day, select from a wide variety of contests, and make numerous bets.
Reliability
Several factors can make real sports unpredictable. As a result of unforeseen circumstances, some of them may be postponed or canceled, for example, if a player tests positive for COVID or gets injured during the warm-up. Sports betting companies may therefore bear the loss. Betting online is more trustworthy.
In a simulation, outside variables like bad weather, postponed events, or hurt players have no bearing.
Variety of Games and Improved Fan Experience
You can offer your consumers a variety of wagers on sports including tennis, football, motorsports, and horse racing by using virtual sports. From the convenience of their homes, they may watch and participate interactively.
Additionally, the graphics created by computers make for the best viewing experience possible.
Unwavering Integrity
Even while it happens infrequently, it is not uncommon for competitors to be swayed or for officials at an athletic competition to accept a bribe. There will be significant interruptions to the sport when this occurs and is made public.
Virtual sports guarantee sports integrity and do away with match-fixing problems.
Higher Revenue
Virtual sports are efficient, economically viable, and have a short return period from a financial standpoint.
Virtual sports platforms are less expensive for operators, offer round-the-clock betting alternatives, and guarantee steady revenue for a sportsbook.
Virtual Sports Betting Drawbacks
An RNG can be set up in a variety of ways, with different levels of unpredictability, difficulty, and transparency, for sports betting. Building high-quality software to create virtual events that can be considered genuinely fair and have surprising outcomes is one of the major challenges for sportsbooks. Players can figure out the pattern and operators can manipulate the system to their advantage without an RNG that can faithfully replicate randomness.
Operators of sports betting sites must receive specific approvals from independent labs in order to ensure that an RNG is running in compliance with industry standards. These test facilities check the source code of your program for known RNG flaws and go over a number of legal documents pertaining to the legitimacy of your business’s operations. For the test, labs confirm:
- RNG’s internal state,
- statistical randomness,
- cycling, seeding, and re-seeding,
- lack of repetition and unpredictability.
Additionally, certification is frequently needed to lawfully function in many regulated marketplaces.
When Traditional Sports and Virtual Sports Collide
You might be wondering whether customers have the appetite to put down bets on a computer simulation of a sporting event or not, even though successful sportsbooks offer virtual sports as a wagering option. Esports have undoubtedly established themselves as a well-liked choice for both entertainment and gambling.
Because of the “always-on” nature of the events and betting, the precise and open controls, and the increased excitement compared to traditional games, virtual sports betting is now not only a viable replacement for live sporting events but also a significant draw in its own right.
For the End: Is Virtual Sports Betting Legal?
From one country to another, accepting bets may or may not be permitted. The same holds true for virtual sports in nations where gambling is forbidden, such as the majority of Muslim countries and regions. Nations that do allow gambling are still adjusting to virtual sports betting because this is a relatively new market. In the United States, where each state has its own set of laws, this is particularly problematic.
When it comes to placing wagers on virtual sports via non-traditional means, such as cryptocurrencies, the procedure is the same as it is for betting on traditional sports. The only difference is in a bit reduced choice of sportsbooks on which you can play using cryptos compared to traditional means of payments, as well as in the type of digital currency accepted by a crypto bookie. E.g. for rarely used cryptocurrencies, such as Dogecoin, there are specialized Dogecoin bookmakers on the Internet to try your luck.
All you have to do then is to locate the line you wish to wager on it and win if you properly prepared your betting strategy.
