The Rise of Virtual Sports Betting

The human race has always had a love of virtual things. By virtual, the definition we are going for here is ‘being such in essence or effect though not formally recognized or admitted’ – i.e. something not real that represents something real.

Books, painting, artworks, films … they are all virtual versions of reality. Some – like fantasy books and sci-fi films are versions of realities that have not yet existed and might never do so. It all adds the enjoyment of living life as a human being.

Virtual sports have not taken off in the way that some experts predicted they would

However, there is one frivolous aspect of human life that’s not really taken off in a ‘virtual’ sense, and that’s a sport (or sports if you are North American). True, there have been sports video games since the 1970s, but those are solely designed for personal entertainment. You get around 100 million people watching the Superbowl each year, but the figures willing to watch the best two Madden NFL 21 (the industry-leading American Football video game) players in the world go head-to-head wouldn’t come anywhere close to that.

With sport come sports betting, and with virtual sports comes virtual sports betting (we are not talking about eSports betting on titles such as FIFA or PES here – rather apps the simulate sporting events allowing people to be upon them), but such a concept has not really taken off, despite being around for close to two decades, now.

But that seems to be changing. With increasing limited sports betting opportunities, it seems that more and more people are turning to online virtual sports betting to entertain themselves by betting on the outcome of virtual sporting encounters. The apps and games that are available for virtual sports bettors are growing increasingly authentic, allowing users to watch the action they’ve bet upon via visual realisations.

How Virtual Sports Betting Works

For our example of virtual sports betting we are going to use a ‘hardcore’ program that’s been around for some time – Virtual Soccer by virtual sports experts 1X2 Gaming. We say ‘hardcore’ as there is no graphical representation of soccer/football, just the statistics.

Virtual Soccer is based around the top flight of English football, complete with authentic team names. For each round of games, bettors have ninety seconds to place bets on as many matches as they wish. Only basic bets (home win, away win or draw) are available, but bets can be combined to create doubles, triples and accumulators.

To help players decide the likely winners of the games they can study both the current league standings and results going back right to the start of the current league season.

Once the ninety seconds are up, it’s ‘game over’, and the results come in. Players are informed as to whether their bets have been successful.

How Do You Know That Virtual Sports Betting Isn’t Rigged?

To the layman, it seems obvious how online sports betting games can be rigged – if the player bets on Liverpool to beat Tottenham, then the software only has to ‘decide’ that the game ends in a draw or Tottenham win.

1. However, for the game to run fairly, the results are calculated before the player places their bets. The odds are carefully calculated so that the casino running the game will remain in profit – just like the odds are calculated at real-world sportsbooks.

All licensed virtual sports betting software is independently ratified by organisations such as eCOGRA to make sure that any player using any betting game is not being swindled.

Who Are The Leading Virtual Sports Betting Software Providers?

1X2 Gaming

1X2 Gaming was originally called 1X2 Football and was created with the intent of designing virtual sports betting games involving soccer. When this failed to bring sufficient levels of success for the company, they renamed themselves 1X2 Gaming and branched out into slots and casino games too.

At the time of writing 1X2 Gaming have eleven virtual sports betting titles – nine football (soccer), one US football and one rugby.

Leap Gaming

If you want something with a little more visual candy than the hardcore software provided by 1X2 Gaming, then you need to take a look at Leap Gaming. Curiously, Leap Gaming is now in partnership with 1X2 Gaming under the 1X2 Network brand.

Leap Gaming’s virtual betting portfolio is split into two sections – instant sports and scheduled sports. The instant sports section has six titles (horse racing, football, greyhounds, speedway, trotting and cycling) while the scheduled sports has the same plus tennis.

All the games here have amazing video screens where you can watch the action unfold almost in real-time, but condensed. Your betting options also extend far beyond betting on who is going to win or lose, or on a draw.

If you enjoy watching and betting on sports but can’t wait for the next real-world event to take place, then any of the titles provided by Leap Gaming are worth a look. The video action available via ‘Virtual Football’ is truly incredible and even comes with commentary!

Where You Can Play Virtual Sports Betting Games

As you might expect, the call for virtual sports betting games has not yet come even close to the popularity of online pokies and live casinos games. This means that not all online casinos, slots sites and bingo sites will offer virtual sports betting opportunities. There are plenty that does though, so it pays to search around and find a site that has a range of such games.

Online sports betting sites are actually more likely to offer virtual sports betting titles. For example, the world’s leading online sports betting site Bet365 has horse racing, greyhounds, football/soccer, cricket, American football, basketball, motor racing, speedway, trotting, darts and tennis across 20 different apps.

Closing Thoughts

Although it is growing in popularity, virtual sports betting will never eclipse betting on real-world sporting events, although no one expects it to. If you enjoy sports betting but feel there’s not enough sporting action around for you to wager upon, then why not give virtual sports betting a go?