Have you ever wondered how a sports betting site goes about the process of offering 
a choice of Virtual Sports for its customers to bet on? Admittedly, if you are a punter that enjoys betting on Virtual Sports then you may not appreciate what the sports betting site has done in order to let you play the choice of games on offer.
However, it is by identifying this process and how things can be improved that you will eventually start to see the next generation of Virtual Sports betting games coming through, offering you a wider choice of Virtual Sports to bet on, with more betting markets available for each sport too.
Given that Virtual Sports ranks third in the list of revenue-generating options available at most online sports bookmaking sites (behind only horseracing and football betting), any chance to improve the options available for customers is something that all good sports betting sites, such as Betway and 10Bet, will be looking into.
So let’s now take a step back and review how a site goes about offering virtual sports betting services to its customers.
- Agree a deal with a Virtual Sports development company to supply Virtual Sports to your site.
Assuming that your sports betting site has made the decision to offer Virtual Sports to customers, the first thing you need is the actual Virtual Sports software, assuming of course your site has the capability to cope with the additional demands of offering Virtual Sports to customers (if not, then you’ll need to get your site design and programming team on the case to make sure that your site is prepared).
Once your site is ready, you then simply need to pick the package that you believe will suit your customers best and the good news is, that in recent times, there have been a glut of new Virtual Sports development companies offering different types of Virtual Sports packages to sports betting sites and casinos.
That is a marked change from a few years ago when the options available for sports betting sites when it came to Virtual Sports, were considerably fewer.
The key question at this point for a sports betting site is to decide what package would suit their customers the most and this isn’t always an obvious choice. If you have a site that, for example, is top heavy with punters betting on football and horse racing, then you are obviously going to want these two Virtual Sports included in your package.
However, if your site focuses perhaps on more niche betting markets, such as esports, then you may find that you need to take a broader view of what could appeal to your punters. Similarly, if you want Virtual Sports to operate at a casino, then you would need to perhaps take a different view as to the types of sports and bets you want to offer your customers.
The good news is that once you have selected the package that meets your needs and paid for it, the company will then supply the base package to your site. For this you get pretty much everything you need to run Virtual Sports betting on your site.
This includes all the key items of the Virtual Sports in question such as:
- All the basic sounds, graphics and animations
- An integrated betting service for each Virtual Sport
Another key aspect of the package is that the sports betting site in question will have the ability to personalise and customise aspects of the package to ensure that it fits in with the host site and it is this which forms the next part of the process.
- Customising your Virtual Sports package to your brand and site
Once you have your Virtual Sports pack installed on your site, your next step is the option to personalise your package so that it fits in neatly with your site and your brand.
If you notice on the top Virtual Sports sites, you will see that many Virtual Sports will carry small advertisements for the site and brand name within the Virtual Sport, such as on the advertising hoardings that you can see around a football stadium or horse racing track.
In addition, you can also customise which betting options are available for each virtual sport, out of the full range available. You can also decide whether or not you want to offer all the Virtual Sports on offer in the package, or just a small number.
Although you can just upload the standard pack, it is more notable and feels more authentic when you play and bet on Virtual Sports that have been personalised by the parent site. It also makes the game feel more polished and professional as well as adding a small element of realism into the game too.
What is noticeable with this aspect is that some sites, such as 10Bet, barely personalise any aspect of their Virtual Sports offering, whereas Betway has made several changes and personalised their offering considerably more and in truth, it looks all the better for it.
What is important to note here is that while companies can change the cosmetic look of Virtual Sports and perhaps the choice of bets on offer on some Virtual Sports, they cannot alter the core programming of the software which controls the payout element of Virtual Sports. These aspects of the Virtual Sports offering cannot be altered by the sports betting company, which ensures you will always get a fair game when you bet on them.
- Test your Virtual Sports services in situ
Once you are happy with your Virtual Sports offering and how it looks, it is now time to test it on your site. This can be done in house, or with a period of beta-testing, where parts of the software may be made available online for people to test and put through the paces to ensure that it works. Any issues with the software can then be identified and fixed before the final step in the process.
- Virtual Sports goes live
With your Virtual Sports offering now ready, it is time for it to go live on the site and hopefully your customers will be ready to embrace the burgeoning world of Virtual Sports. It is then down to how you market and advertise Virtual Sports on your site as to how popular it will become with your customers.
- Review your Virtual Sports offering periodically and update when required.
It is this point that many companies that now offer Virtual Sports betting are now at. Having offered the service for several years now and seen how popular it has become, the race is now on for the next generation of Virtual Sports game to be made available to customers.
It is a delicate balancing act however as the introduction of a brand new Virtual Sport can be tricky, especially if customers prefer the older game it has replaced, or refuse to switch from the older game to the newer should both be offered by a casino. Therefore judging when and how to release a new and improved Virtual Sport needs to be judged carefully.
Following this process has allowed sports betting sites to offer Virtual Sports over the years but asw e head into a new era of Virtual Sports, with more sports being developed and a greater number of bets available, combined with greater context for Virtual Sports game, we have barely seen the tip of the iceberg as to what Virtual Sports betting could eventually become.
And that is an exciting prospect for the future of Virtual Sports betting.
