Published on July 3rd, 2020 | by Bibhuranjan

Have Virtual Sports Found Their Place in 2020?

Virtual sports have been around for many years. These are mainly used by bookmakers to create events that their customers can bet on.

However, during 2020, for the first time ever, virtual sports came to the fore after live sport was cancelled around the world.

The Coronavirus pandemic shook the world as a whole and sporting events were cancelled with many leagues and competitions either being suspended, delayed and in some instances, cancelled all together.

This hit sport hard, with postponed events such as the 2020 Olympics down to individual sporting leagues around the world.

Without sport, there is nothing for bookmakers to offer their customers. In came virtual sports, they were already there but they went into the limelight for this period.

The move brought them to a new audience, and has that finally allowed the virtual service to find a place amongst live sport in 2020 and beyond?

Can Virtual Sports be Anything More Than a Substitute?

The sporting landscape is varied and vast. If a full schedule is back then there is little room for virtual sports to find a place, let alone to stand out. This is likely to cause problems in the future, with people far more inclined to bet on real-life football than a virtual game, for example.

However, we are seeing a lot of technological advancements used by bookmakers to improve things, which may help virtual sports stand out a little more.

Big mobile tech advancements are helping, meaning that players can bet and watch virtual sports from their mobile, this is a big move, especially because more people are turning to mobile betting.

These advancements are needed to try and create something different, something that will catch the eye and move a player from betting on real-life events to betting on virtual ones.

We need to see more if virtual events want to become more than just a substitute.

What are Bookmakers Doing to Promote Virtual Sports?

It is fair to say that virtual sports contributed in some way to helping many bookmakers survive the pandemic and come out of the other side relatively fine.

The big bookmakers such as those listed on the FreeBets UK website are likely to push virtual sports for the remainder of 2020 in an attempt to keep people interested in them and betting on them.

This is likely to lead to promotions which could either be things such as advertisements, or if they wanted to go a step further, bookmakers could have free bet offers for virtual sports.

After the natural movement of their customers towards virtual sports because there was nothing else on offer, expect bookmakers to try and continue promoting their virtual service to keep people betting on them.

What Does the Future Hold?

This all depends on what the bookmakers choose to do moving forward.

Their virtual service was something great to fall back on when they needed it due to a lack of sport. The same lack of sport is highly unlikely to ever happen again, so where does that leave virtual sport?

If something can be created to make the virtual offering different and exciting, with the right promotion in place we could see people move to betting on the events. This will probably be alongside real-life events rather than instead of them.

The key is that in 2020 many people have placed a bet on something virtual for the very first time.

That is a big leap forward for bookmakers, and with the right next steps, we could see virtual sports become more popular, with more bets being placed in the future.

Tags: bets, gambling, mobile, online, sports, UK

About the Author

Bibhuranjan Editorial Officer, technofaq.org I'm an avid tech enthusiast at heart. I like to mug up on new and exciting developments on science and tech and have a deep love for PC gaming. Other hobbies include writing blog posts, music and DIY projects.