Virtual Sports and Slot Games Combined In New Type of Modern Slot

Inspired Gaming are well known within the Virtual Sports industry for producing a number of top Virtual Sports titles for a large number of betting sites and companies across the globe. However, what may be less well known is that the company is also a slot developer and by combining these two particular skills, they may well have come up with something unique in the slots and Virtual Sports industry.

That thing being a slot game, that features Virtual Sports as part of the key features of the slot.

Now, if you come from a background of slot games, or perhaps from someone who is more a Virtual Sports betting fan, you will know that Virtual Sports and standard slot games are very different beasts, so how have Inspired managed to combine seemingly two very different disciplines into a single product?

In this article, we will not only find out, but explore the very titles that are currently available online today which showcase Virtual Sports and slot gaming together.

But first, let’s explore the relationship between Virtual Sports and slots and explain why despite appearances, these two forms of betting game are not as dissimilar as you would imagine.

Virtual Sports and Slots – Not So Different?

At first glance, it would appear that slot games and Virtual Sports could not bemore different. One runs through a computerised sporting event offering a range of different bets at different odds, before simulating the outcome of the event to finalise the results. The other uses reels and symbols to display the outcome of the players ‘spin’.

Yet, when you strip back the presentational side of each form of game, both Virtual Sports and slot gaming share many of the same characteristics and the key one is that a random number generator (RNG) is the beating heart of the game.

It is this RNG that will generate the results of a slot spin and also the results of a Virtual Horse Race or Virtual Football game. Sure, the calculations used in each may be different and set up differently, but in essence, you have two structures built around the same engine, in as much as you may have the same chassis shared by two cars, but which look very different from one another.

So although slots and Virtual Sports look very different, the fact that they share the same components (and in truth, pretty much all casino games use a RNG at some point in the process) means that they also share a lot of similarities too.

And Inspired Entertainment have taken that to develop something new and innovative for both Virtual Sports fans and slot gamers.

Slot games that feature Virtual Sports as part of the process.

Inspired Entertainment Virtual Sports Slots

So far there are two slot games from Inspired Entertainment that utilise elements of a slot game, with elements of Virtual Sports. We will take a closer look at both these games and how they work below.

• 1^st Down Slot

As you can probably imagine given the name of this slot game, 1^st Down is based on American Football and it has a number of nifty features including a Slam Stop feature, allowing you to stop the reels at any time, and the ability to pick one of the eight fictitious teams as ‘your’ team for the slot, which will then personalise your game in your teams chosen colours and livery.

When you load up the game what you will find is that you have a pretty standard 5×3 reel slot game that has 30 pay lines in play. You can also play from 0.10p to £100.00 per spin, which means that it is game that can be played by lower stakes as well as higher stakes slots gamers.  It is a higher volatility slot with some decent returns available in the base game thanks to the Wild symbol, which appears on the middle three reels of the slot and which can substitute for other symbols to help create some additional or better value wins.

The main feature of the slot though is the 1^st Down Bonus game. Land five or more Gold Coins in any position on the reels and you will trigger the bonus feature of the same name, with each of the Gold Coins having a multiplier attached ranging from 1x to 10x the standard win amount.

In the bonus feature, the game then switches to a Virtual Sports sim, where you get to watch your chosen team in action. For every touchdown they score, they will win you 6x the value of the Gold Coins you have landed on screen, for every field goal, you get 3x the value of the Gold Coins landed on screen. However, if your team fails to score or loses possession, the bonus ends.

This part of the game is where the Virtual Sports graphics come in as the game is brought to life via the same series of animations you find in Virtual American Football.

So essentially, you have a standard slot, which uses the Virtual Sports technology and animations designed by Inspired Gaming to run their Virtual Sports offering, used to display their main bonus feature. It is a brilliant approach and it is one that the company has copied in a couple of other games.

Two Other Options

Inspired have not just offered 1^st Down as their sole American Football Slot Virtual, but they have also used a similar process on two other games, the first of these is The Grand National Race of Champions slot, which uses Virtual Horse Racing to display the bonus features in that game and the second is Double Top Darts, which is an exciting Darts slot game that also uses some of the technology that made Virtual Darts such a huge hit when it was released on sites around a year or so ago.

You can find these Virtual Sports-themed slots at many sites that offer Inspired Entertainment Virtuals and especially those that have their own casino attached, such as at bet365 Games.