How innovation is driving the growth of virtual sports

Virtual sports are nowadays considered strong and primary gaming products, having surpassed their initial market placement as mere filler content between live sports and racing events. Operators in both mature and developing markets are increasingly deploying dedicated virtual betting channels at their whole retail estates, often comprising of several TVs inside each shop, to offer customers the widest possible range of fast-paced, exciting and entertaining virtual sports. Cutting-edge technology and significant improvements in motion capture, graphics and animation have helped gain the attention of more players, and made virtual sports an increasingly integral part of each operator’s portfolio; and one of the fastest growing and fully automated product verticals.

The rise of betting on virtual sports is fully aligned with the fast-paced sensibilities of the modern consumer and their desire for product diversity. Virtuals also lead to competition among operators that drives growth and leads to increased product offerings and differentiation. Virtual sports are ideal products in these market conditions since they, in contrast to real sports, can be scheduled at any time. Virtual game cycles also last for a much shorter period of time than live events, and can be offered on a 24/7 basis and at whatever intervals the operator and its market may dictate. Virtual sports offer unlimited betting opportunities to punters, and thus attract the widest possible clientele.

With virtual sports, both retail and online operators can accelerate the betting experience and entertainment value for players. As the virtual games market keeps expanding and evolving, so does the demand for further innovation, with virtual sports being offered not only as scheduled ones – like their live/real counterparts – but also as on-demand ones, taking place whenever each player desires and even at the pace they desire. Thus, bettors have the opportunity to trigger virtual events at any time, from their smart devices, their home PCs or from SSBT’s within retail shops, enjoying faster betting opportunities and more betting markets.

International appeal

Based on these unique features, the addition of virtual products to any portfolio, if properly selected and deployed, is a great enabler for every operator seeking to attract and engage new customers, drawing the attention of younger demographics, as well as retain the existing customers. This is the reason why virtual sports, having started in the UK more than a decade ago, are now booming in Italy and rapidly expanding in many European countries.

Virtual games are also a growing market in Africa, LATAM and the Caribbean; and more and more territories are gradually adopting them. However, the next surge of virtual games is expected to be experienced in the US, once the regulatory environment enables their wider adoption beyond the casino market and the few yet prominent cases of US Lotteries, like in Maryland or Washington DC, where virtual games are being offered to players with great success.

Vermantia is proud to be uniquely positioned to support this growth by offering the largest virtual games single source worldwide with 25+ top performing products and more than two-thirds of the total number of virtual game titles available on the market, including unique, global and tailor-made titles created to address specific markets’ needs. Our goal is to enable lotteries and gaming operators to shape the ideal product mix of virtual games for each market. From there, operators can rapidly deploy products to their markets via a single integration to Vermantia CONNECT, our multi-vendor, multi-content platform, and seamlessly manage them thereafter through a single interface and a universal scheduler.

Customer-first approach

Another key point that makes Vermantia’s offering unique is that it can provide the operator with an exceptional combination of gaming content, delivery technologies and retail solutions. Our premium virtual content is delivered with the optimum for each operator solution, from satellite broadcasting to streaming or in-shop rendering. Furthermore, it is fully localised and consumed at points of sale via an array of complementary to each other retail solutions, from a single playout to multiple monitors managed by our powerful CMS system; a flexible SSBT, especially designed for virtual games and smart phone applications for all players to bet spontaneously within the shop using their own devices.

We firmly believe that the future of betting on retail lies in content development and technology innovation alongside retail remodelling. Within an increasingly competitive multi-channel market, retail shops have to differentiate. They need to embrace interactive and engaging products to further enhance their customer base, sustain competitiveness and increase profitability. Virtual sports have all of the characteristics to support this evolution of the retail environment and the transformation of retail shops to dynamic, content-rich gaming sites, attracting existing and new customers alike.

Yiannis Gangas is chief product officer at Vermantia. He has a 25 years’ successful track record in business development and operations in the gaming industry, product and project management, international bidding and sales, start-ups and change management. Among his career highlights, his 15 years work experience at Intralot, as market development director and group director racing, is considered to be the key in terms of professional achievements, as he significantly contributed to the company becoming a world-leader in the gaming industry and expanding to new product verticals.