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Virtual Sports Are Not Reskinned Slots Say Industry Expert
By Shane Addinall Oct 14, 2020 IndustryWith the dominance of slots in casino gambling, the risk is assuming that all RNG based games are retooled slot machines. Virtual sports provider, Martin Wachter, explains why this is not the case and shares some astounding revenue figures.One of the challenges of staying current, and even better yet moving ahead of the curve, in the iGaming sector is to constantly challenge your thinking around what the industry is and how to best serve the players.
Over the years this customer-centric thinking linked to a love of casino games and new technologies has seen some amazing advancements, the top three which immediately come to mind was to move to offer Free Spins as bonuses, mobile gambling and live dealer casino games.
Mechanics Don’t Dictate Experience
A burning question in the quest for market growth and expansion has been where crossovers existing between various forms of gambling, will bingo players make good casino players, or will poker players enjoy sports betting.
The other crossover question is related to game mechanics. There has been a lingering misconception that simply because games share a mechanical similarity to online and mobile slots, they will naturally appeal to slot fans and vice versa.
According to Golden Race CEO Martin Wachter, this disparity is particularly true of one of the new game categories, virtual sports.
What are Virtual Sports?
Virtual sports are a game category that includes a variety of simulated sporting events, ranging from horse racing to dog racing to soccer matches. There are even a few virtual fighting games which simulate boxing matches.
While a small selection of this game type is available at online casinos, they have found their niche in the betting industry. Like any live sporting events, the bookmakers have screens available to air the event, and bets are placed on the outcome of the race or match.
The outcome is based on a random number generator like a slot machine however they do take into account certain statistical data based on the past performance of the competitors. These stats are what influence the odds given on any offered virtual sports match.
Virtual Sports Standalone in Africa
The reality of virtual sports betting as a standalone market was highlighted at the recent SBC Digital Summit Africa by industry CEO Martin Wachter.
With his experience in providing virtual sports to African betting shops Wachter gave solid financials to support his position, saying:
“We are selling around 50 million betting slips a day, more than 20 million bets. In 2019, we had half a billion € in GGR. In Africa, we are selling at the moment seven out of 10 tickets every day. It’s the only continent where betting shops open because they want to have the virtuals.”
According to Wachter, the lockdown has drawn attention to the virtuals industry from retail betting locations outside of Africa.
“It (the lockdown) helped us to grow outside of Africa. A lot of the operators who never had resources left to add more virtual sports showed an interest. We signed 110 contracts in the first two weeks.”
With virtual sports historically only bringing in 10%-15% of the daily betting slip sales across Europe it will be interesting to see if this increased interest in the industry will be permanent, or if it will drop once live sports are back on track.
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