A look at “The Unlikely Rise to the Top for Virtual Sports” Virtual sports have been around since the early 1960s and have always been a small niche for fanatics until late. Upon its inception, it was a randomly generated code to essentially determine results and was historically home to groups looking to partake in an enthralling game that was centered towards baseball. It didn’t take long for bookmakers to adopt this in casinos and virtual horse racing was formed, which is still incredibly popular today.
Today, you can find thousands of different games that use the random number generator to determine virtual sports events that range from greyhound racing to NASCAR and other motorsport events and even soccer matches. In terms of the style itself, the general aesthetics are set to mirror real sports markets and the odds typically reflect those that would be applied in real-life.
During the covid pandemic, there was an enormous rise in interest in virtual sports, with real-life sports canceled for months on end. The player counts not only increased just for virtual sports, but for more traditional betting methods also. Poker, roulette, and beginner-friendly blackjack online all welcomed a rise in interest, especially with such ease of access in both the registration process and multi-device optimization. Besides, a variety of innovative game modes attracts many newbies who wish to advance their gambling skills.
E-Sports and the Connection to Virtual Sports
Many that are outside of the gaming and virtual sports sphere would assume that e-sports and virtual sports are under the same branch, however, they are vastly different in many ways despite being associated by name. eSports, as a whole, wasn’t a market in which that thrived instantly, not all dissimilar in that sense to virtual sports. However, there is a tremendous skill level required in order to compete at the top of the eSports events and tournaments that also have risen to offer insane cash prizes for winners.
Teams now are backed by huge corporations, institutions and come with a mass of sponsors. Some teams are even followed as though they are partaking in real sports events. During the pandemic, Call of Duty’s Warzone events were among some of the most watched events of the year and hosted millions of dollars worth of prizes throughout its lifecycle.
With this rise in viewership and popularity, real sports teams started to create their own eSports teams and some of the biggest soccer clubs in the world now have full teams taking part in FIFA tournaments and Formula 1 tournaments officially representing the teams themselves. Many teams in the English Premier League currently house some of the best gamers on the market and the interest supposedly stems from the fact many cannot attend matches in real life and also gives die-hard fans another format of their team to support.
Will eSports Retain its Huge Audience?
While eSports retain a massive audience, both in live viewers and post-game views, there’s always been question marks surrounding the market and if the popularity is temporary. It’s not a surprise if you consider the fact that virtual sports took around 30 years to really gain the popularity it needed to become home-stays in casinos both in-house and online. If you consider how the rise of eSports and virtual sports were aided by the pandemic and the stay-at-home agendas worldwide it’s not too far-fetched to think that now sports have returned, people will no longer retain that interest for these types of events.
It’s also important to consider the fact that many of the viewers of these types of events would ideally like to take part in the games and as consoles and gaming devices become more accessible, gamers will likely turn to the games themselves to hit the spot.
Fantasy Sports
Fantasy sports can also be put in a similar bracket to virtual and eSports, with these types of games and applications purely based on the form of players and teams in real life. Players that are playing well in real-life will award points should they be a part of your fantasy team. There’s been a vast amount of interest in fantasy sports and gives players a feeling of being invested in more games, teams and players they admire.
For many sports that have a very large audience, they’re likely to have a fantasy sports app or website to house the followers of that sport. Sorare recently announced their partnership with the English Premier League and is one of the most used fantasy sports apps available, already having NBA and MLB on board. With integrations that house a marketplace, where players can purchase different editions of players in exchange for Ethereum, they’ve also made steps to attract the cryptocurrency community.
Fantasy sports are often free-to-play, but offer incredibly attractive prizes for the winners of the game-week, or season with little to no effort required. However, it would be a very difficult task to win these types of events without a strong knowhow of the app, the sport or the players housed in your teams.
