CEO of the virtual sports supplier, Martin Wachter, believes the absence of live sports betting due to the coronavirus outbreak provides virtual sports the opportunity to become more familiar with players.

Speaking at the Betting In Face Of COVID-19 virtual conference, Wachter said: “Our virtual basketball game will be released in the UK in a couple of weeks and the beauty with it is it will be the first virtual game we offer with in-play betting, which will be available after nine minutes.

“I see a big growth in the virtual sports in-play market and believe it can offer markets not available at the moment in live sports.

“We have had more than 100 operators sign up with us in this period and believe we can reach 200 easily. Virtual sports should continue to grow after the outbreak, when people get used to the games and when business is back to usual, which I see as good news for us and our operators.”

The CEO reinforced the importance of virtual sports, stating 79% of Golden Race’s gross gaming revenue in 2019 came from virtual football, explaining the key to virtual sports is treating it like a normal sportsbook.

He added: “Players are able choose from their favourite leagues, such as the English Premier League, and build up their play across different leagues, as you would at a sportsbook. The key to virtual sports is treating it like a sportsbook, by changing margins and using real odds, and also understanding the market like you would with real sports.

“We’ve had to close more than half our 50,000 retail shops due to the coronavirus, which is why virtual sports is so important to us.

“Our players say it’s like playing real sports, not a pure RNG (random number generator) game as players can check team and player stats.”