Published on 03/07/2025 13:53:32
Photo: Photo by EVG Kowalievska
It’s a bit of a novel concept. Betting on sporting events that don’t really exist. Virtual sports in casinos play out on a screen. The odds are computer-generated. You make your wager and watch it play out on a screen.
It can be a fun way to bet on sports that aren’t readily available. It also just exposes you as a gambler to games you might not have previously paid much attention to. But is virtual sports betting based on skill or chance?
In practice, it’s something like this: You choose a game. For the sake of an example, let’s say that you want to bet on a virtual greyhound race. You scroll through the app and review your options. You might find that, of the six dogs available, Chews on Stick has won eleven of the last twenty races. You take a closer look at his recent stats and think, “Ok. This is the greyhound for me.”
You place your bet and watch the race play out. If Chews on Stick wins, you will receive a payout proportionate to the odds.
If this sounds pretty much exactly like any other sports bet, that’s because it is. The primary difference is that you don’t have to wait for a game to be happening. You can place your wagers anytime. These virtual dogs don’t get tired.
Let’s take it another step further. You are a huge soccer fan. You live to bet on your favorite teams. Alas. The season is over. Your betting days are behind you. Or are they? A virtual soccer application will let you bet on simulated games “taking place,” within the league of your choice.
So if you are ride-or-die Premier League, you can still bet on exciting matchups even when the season isn’t going. The soccer betting odds are calculated based on a bunch of historical data, including how these teams have fared against each other in the past.
In this way, virtual sports can extend the season and keep you engaged all year round. The format isn’t so different from a fantasy sports board or even a video game.
The odds are determined using random number generators—basically, the same type of algorithm that is used to calculate other virtual casino game odds. The numbers may be weighted based on the individual attributes of the virtual participants. A better Premier League team will have a better chance of winning than one that has historically struggled.
Does that mean your computer is basically flipping a coin? Not quite. It’s a mathematically complex system, but a fair one. The odds are viewable on the application itself, and you will also see the payout percentage.
A game with a 95% return to player rating will give back $95 of every $100 spent to the player on average. Obviously, this says nothing at all about what you will experience. You might string together a few good wins and leave with more than $100. Alternatively, you might bet all $100 of your hypothetical dollars on a single wager and lose.
Sports bettors everywhere ask themselves this exact question. Spoilers: There is no objective answer. You can bring a lot of skill to sports betting—virtual or otherwise—and lose every bet you place.
You can pick teams based on their name, or their colors, or the star player's Zodiac sign and win big. Such is the life of a gambler.
But let’s try to be a little more calculated. Luck has a big influence on individual sports betting outcomes. For example, in 2019, Virginia was the number one seed going into the Sweet Sixteen round of March Madness.
In a stunning and historic upset, they were defeated by the sixteenth seed UMBC. Now, if you bet on UMBC for that matchup, you were very lucky. You might have acted on research and good information to make that betting decision, but you came out on the right side of a sporting outcome that had literally never happened before.
That’s luck. If you win your Sweet Sixteen bets five years in a row, that’s skill. Luck doesn’t scale very well.
Virtual sporting games give you everything needed to make informed betting decisions. The same way you might go to school, studying odds and previous outcomes for a real event, you can research virtual matchups and bet wisely. The algorithm is honed to ensure fair, balanced outcomes that play out just like real events.
If you aren’t completely sold, give it a try for free. Many virtual sporting games offer a lite mode, allowing you to experiment without wagering real money. It’s a great way to try virtual sports risk-free.
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