Virtual sports betting in the UK
One of the fastest growing markets for online casinos is virtual sports betting in the UK. With that in mind, we take a closer look at this amazing new market and its potential for the future.
Space Casino not only provides great sports betting, live casino and slots, it has a dedicated virtual sports section that allows you to bet on a whole raft of virtual sports, with all the excitement that provides. You can find Space Casino’s massive virtual sports market here.
Virtual sports betting in the UK is on the verge of becoming a huge phenomena and will only improve over time.
The best virtual sports betting sites
Not all online casinos offer virtual sports betting, so it might take a little shopping around to find the sites that do. Even those that do are not necessarily the best exponents of this groundbreaking and fast-evolving market.
There are many things that you might want to look for in a virtual sports betting site. These can include the scale of the betting, the different games and also the quality of the site and the design of games.
With that in mind, here are some of the best virtual sports betting sites available at the present time:
- Space Casino - Great bonuses and superfast withdrawals
- Ladbrokes
- William Hill
Space Casino
There are many ways to design an online casino, but a sense of fun and a user-friendly interface are always winners. What’s more, combining these elements works perfectly in tandem for the colourful and engaging market that is virtual sports betting.
The virtual sports themselves are beautifully presented, with graphics that are as lifelike as you might find on the various modern consoles. Squint and you’ll think it’s the real thing. But it doesn’t stop there at Space Casino.
With sports as diverse as horse racing, motorsports and even table tennis, there’s little chance of becoming bored with the options available. What’s more, there’s a great sportsbook, various live casino games and hundreds and hundreds of slots to play as well.
Ladbrokes
We all know Ladsbrokes for its sportsbook, but did you know it has a very high quality platform for virtual sports. Particularly horse racing. Using real life images and with thrilling commentary, it’s quite the experience.
Everything described is far from perfect, after all, this is a technology and market that’s growing into itself, but if you are looking for an online casino with high quality virtual sports betting, you could do a lot worse than Ladbrokes.
William Hill
William Hill is a well-respected gambling company that takes itself and the gambling markets it provides very seriously. So it’s not a given that they would dip their toe into the virtual market. More than dipped a toe in, they’ve jumped in head first.
Willam Hill’s “Virtual World” very much keeps pace with the rest of the site. It might be virtual, but it’s still a serious business. With the same great graphics backed up by commentary as Ladbrokes, it’s an impressive virtual world they’ve built, but it also has interface maps perfectly onto the rest of the site perfectly. Proof if needed that virtual sports is here to stay.
The history of virtual sports betting in the UK
Virtual sports betting dates back to the early 1960’s in the U.S. but this early version bears little resemblance to the virtual sports we now enjoy. Combining gaming and gambling was hardly the biggest leap of the imagination, but its future as virtual sports betting was never set in stone.
The type of virtual sport we know today really has its roots in the early 2010’s, where online casinos bid to outdo each other with the markets they provided to their customers. The potential was always there but, with leaps forwards in technology, it has truly started to come into its own in the last few years.
Virtual sports betting tips
The first and most important tip is to make sure that it remains fun. Gambling of any kind should never become a way of earning money or dealing with the day-to-day stresses of life. Virtual sports are no different in this way than any other market.
But are there tips that apply to virtual sports? In short, yes. Some are related to any market, while others are a little more relevant to the virtual world. Understanding these can help to enhance your experience when betting on virtual sports.
Virtual horse racing and form
Unlike in real life, virtual horse racing has no form to study. The race itself is built on the odds presented and the engine that guides the simulation. That’s not to say it’s fixed, like any gambling market, it informs the performance of each horse according to the odds. An outside shot still has a chance of winning, it’s just a lot less likely than the favourite.
Focusing on the odds is therefore the main tactic of virtual horse racing, much like it would be for any computer generated competition without further human input.
Virtual football betting
The beauty of virtual football is that it allows you to place bets on football at any time of the day, even when there’s no game being broadcast. While that’s less of an issue with worldwide leagues being available for many sites, few actually show the game in the more obscure leagues.
Virtual football betting is also short in form. It’s immediate and visual, making it a fun and fast-paced market compared to its real life counterpart. Taking advantage of this, if it’s something you crave, is all part of the fun of virtual sports.
Odds for virtual sports
Virtual sports odds are set in much the same way you might expect the slots to work. This means they have a standard RTP (Return To Player) that produces winnings accordingly. For example, an RTP of 96% means that, on average, for every £1 wagered you would get back 96p.
Of course that doesn’t mean this is guaranteed. It’s possible for you to win jackpots on the very first spin, that’s the fun of online casinos, but it does mean that costs and winnings are controlled in a legal and fair way.
Virtual sports betting options
Compared to its real life counterpart, virtual sports markets are smaller, having less choice. For example, there can be hundreds of different types of bets on one single game for even a lower league game, whereas virtual sports generally provides just a handful of options.
While each site is different from the next, this simplicity has its advantages, particularly if you find the sports betting world more than a little baffling as a beginner. If you’re new to sports betting, it could therefore be a fun and simple way to dip your toe in the water.
Accumulators and other multiple bets for virtual sports betting in the UK
There’s no set way of gambling on virtual sports, each site will provide its own markets and odds depending on its policy. Typically, virtual sports betting has fewer options than you would find in real life markets, but that’s not to say that there aren’t accumulators and other multiple bet options to try.
Our advice is to try it and see what works for you. There’s usually something that you can enjoy when betting on virtual sports and most casinos will be happy to offer any advice you might need.
FAQs
As with anything that might be new to you, there are probably plenty of questions you have about virtual sports and the betting options that it offers. Below are some of the most common questions we get asked when it comes to virtual sports.
What are the most popular bets?
As touched upon above, each site might change the options for bets according to their own policies. But there are some standard and mainstay bets that tend to be used by players. These include:
- Wins
- Forecasts and tricasts
- Correct scores
- Each ways
- Various goal markets
Is cash out available?
Cash out is not usually a feature for virtual sports, although who knows what’s to come in the future. Most virtual sports are also quite rapid, you won’t get full 90 minute football matches, for example, as you would in real life.
As a result, a cash out market is not really appropriate for the platform. The beauty of the virtual world is it can be designed to suit whatever players want from their betting markets, and right now that seems to be fast-paced action that you can dip in and out of as the mood takes you.
Can I combine sports bets with virtual sports?
No, these are two entities that are very separate from each other. As previously mentioned, who knows what innovations and changes may occur in the future, but it is unlikely that we’ll see these two worlds come together anytime soon.
Rather than seeing them as two sports markets that don’t interact, it would be more accurate to see the virtual market as similar to live casino or slots. You wouldn’t expect to be able to combine a spin on your favourite slot machine with a horse race, so it goes for virtual sports.
What is the future of virtual sports?
The great thing about virtual sports betting is there are no limits, or at least the limits are purely of the imagination and an urge to create for the designer. This makes it a market with so much potential that we can scarcely imagine where it might be in a decade.
In some ways, this makes it similar to gaming in general. At the moment, virtual sports are like Space Invaders were to gaming, only it looks a hell of a lot more advanced. The comparison is relevant only in that it’s early days and no one in 1979 could have imagined where the video games went over the next few decades.
This is definitely one to get in on the ground floor and hang on for the wild ride that is to come.
Which sports are available virtually?
Virtual sports started out with the classics of real life gambling markets, which is horse racing and football. Soon tennis and greyhound racing were soon added. From there, everything from American Football, Baseball, Basketball and Ice Hockey became available in the UK. But it’s here where things are starting to get more creative.
Table Tennis has now also been launched and cricket and darts are also making an impact on many sites. Where does it stop? Wherever the market dictates. Once the game has been designed, if it takes off it’s here to stay, and we can only see the options growing from here.
Aren’t virtual sports more predictable?
In some ways yes, the game will run along the lines of the odds that were programmed into it. But make no mistake, the results are only predictable for its average, anything can still happen.
As previously touched upon, virtual sports in many ways share their design with slot machines in that there is a set RTP (Return To Player) programmed into the game. But this also means that long-shots are guaranteed to come up, they just won’t happen very often, much like a jackpot on slots.
In other ways, the predictability is purely positive. There will be no games called-off due to bad weather, for example. During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, virtual sports became much more popular among players due to the lack of sporting events being staged. Many of those players have stuck with virtual sports as a result.
Aren’t virtual sports results controlled by the casino?
This is an understandable view when you consider that virtual sports are nothing more than graphics. It could easily then be inferred that the casino or designer can manipulate the result as easily as drawing a cartoon.
To put your mind at rest, this would be illegal. All virtual sports betting must play out without any further influence from the casino. That is not to say that the result is random, however. All odds are factored into the “performance” of the virtual team or individual, so it’s essentially a law of averages.
To make the comparison again, this is the same as you would get with slots. Each spin is not controlled by the casino, but the chances of a huge jackpot are slim. The same could be said, for example, of an outsider in virtual horse racing. Long shots do win on occasion, however, it’s what makes gambling so exciting.
Is betting on virtual sport legal?
Virtual sports, like any market, is carefully controlled by the relevant authorities in each of the regions it has been introduced. This means you can play each virtual sport with the confidence you would with any gambling market.
If you have any questions about the way in which virtual sports work, the casino should be able to provide all the answers you need.
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