Playtech makes around-the-clock virtual sports push

Playtech is midway through a major overhaul of its virtual sports content as it bids to provide customers with around-the-clock betting options.

The firm is currently wrapping up a three-week tenancy of one of the largest stages at Warner Bros. Studios in London, in what has been a record-breaking motion capture process

Current and former basketball, tennis and football professionals have been employed to ensure content is as life-like as possible, taking part in gruelling sessions in motion capture suits while surrounded by upwards of £5m worth of hi-tech cameras.

The process has set new records not just in virtual sports but across motion capture as a whole for the most people captured at once (19) and the largest motion capture volume to date. The captured footage is set to be rendered at a cost of around £9 per second.

“We are always looking for the next vertical and up until now virtual sports has been a relatively untapped market,” Elliott Norris, Playtech’s head of virtual sports, told eGaming Review. “We are trying to provide bettors with betting options 24 hours a day,” he added.

By its own admission, Playtech has been late to virtual sports, with its current product considered to be behind industry leader Inspired.

The firm’s current virtual sports offering is limited to football, horse racing, greyhound racing and speedway, but there is a belief that the significant investment being made will give Playtech a product which is not only competitive but will expand the virtual sports vertical as a whole.

Playtech now has a dedicated virtual sports team of 24 members in place, with the motion capture being overseen by Weedi, the 3D animation house it acquired earlier this year.

And virtual sports will be kept in a continual development cycle with new markets and sports already on the roadmap. As well as basketball, tennis and additional football content, velodrome is in testing and trotting, which is popular in Scandinavian markets, is in production.

The firm is also exploring in-play options for football betting, as opposed to the current 90-second highlight reel it currently operates.

“The philosophy is if it is available in sportsbook, it should be available in virtual. In our roadmap we will be adding new markets and we are in a position to deliver them across multiple verticals,” Norris said.

Playtech’s virtual push comes at the same time the firm has been making waves in the financial trading sector, having struck deals totalling approximately £900m for three financial trading firms.