What’s the Key Information I Can Use When Betting on Virtual Sports?

Written By Ian John on July 18, 2018

When you are placing a bet on a real-life sporting event you have plenty of information available to you which can help inform your bet. On horseracing for example, you can look at the form of the horse, how well the jockey and the trainer are doing in recent times, you can check whether the ground and weather conditions are likely to suit the horse and how they tend to perform when drawn low or high numbers.

If you really want to delve deeper, you can then check the breeding of the horse and how it compares to other runners in the race. You can obviously perform similar in-depth analysis of the statistics, facts and figures for any top sport, such as Football, Tennis, Golf of Cricket to enable you to narrow down your options until you are comfortable with the bet or bets you wish to make.

However, when you turn your attention to Virtual Sports, things are a little different. The competitors in all types of Virtual Sports are simply computer generated and as a result, do not have a history or similar. The runner or team has been generated simply for the purpose to compete in the Virtual Sports event under the parameters as defined by the software.

Having said that, in some Virtual Sports (such as Horse Racing or Greyhound racing) when you view the information on a runner in that race, you will notice that there is a form guide to how that particular runner has done over the last few races.

So the question here is whether you can use that particular type of information to inform your bet in the same way you can real-life sports betting, or whether this information is simply there for decorative and realism.

In truth, there is a simple answer to this question.

Can you use information such as form to inform your Virtual Horse Racing or Virtual Greyhound bet?

In short, you can do so, but it will not likely offer you any advantage when it comes to selecting the winner of a particular races.

While the performance of real-life racehorses and greyhounds is tracked and recorded over time in real life events, in Virtual Sports, the form of these runners is generated by the program to perhaps justify their current price but also to simply give the sport a little more realism.

This information is simply there for ‘decorative’ purposes and as such, should not be used as a basis for you to strategize which runner to back when betting on Virtual Sports.

This is true of other Virtual Sports too where for example, a rider in Virtual Speedway, or a driver in Virtual Motor Sports may have a list of how they have performed in recent races, but once again, this information is generated from the software and is not an indicator of their ability.

So if this information is of little use to you as a punter, then what information is available to you when betting on Virtual Sports to help inform your bet?

What is the pertinent information I can use when betting on Virtual Sports?

In truth, the only information that you have that is a more reliable indicator of the chances of a success of any competitor in Virtual Sports is the odds that the selection has been given in the chosen market.

For example, in Virtual Horse racing, a race may be generated that has 10 runners. To ensure that the betting on this event is relatively realistic, the software will handicap each of the ten runners. Some will be handicapped positively (and thus be the shorter odds selections) while others will be handicapped negatively (and these are the longer odds selections).

The greater the positive handicap for runners, the shorter the odds for that selection with the favourite for the race being the selection that has been handicapped most positively. On the flip side of that, the least favoured selection will be the outside bet for the race.

Of course, a race of 10 horses could have a wide handicap between competing horses, while in another race, it could be a small handicap. That is exactly what happens in Virtual Sports, which allows it to offer shorter priced favourites, as well as longer odds chances.

Therefore, the best indicator you can use on Virtual Sports when selecting your option to back is the odds for that selection.

However, even if you decide to select only the shorter-priced horses, then you need to realise that even this will not guarantee you regular wins.

Never forget the random element of Virtual Sports

The one important thing to note here is that even if you decide to back the favourite in every Virtual Sports race, you may find that you don’t win as often as you would expect to and that is because there is a high random element built in to each Virtual Sports event.

This random element will mean that there is a greater diversity in winners than you would likely see on a typical day of racing. It is this variance which makes Virtual Sports so popular, but also makes it so difficult to predict from a stand point of profitable betting.

In truth, you are best viewing betting on Virtual Sports as similar to having a wager on a slot machine. Both use a high degree of randomness in the process in deciding a result and as such, it can be tricky to back the winner in either. It is also why many people believe that betting on Virtual Sports is much less like real sports betting and much more like playing a slot game.

Given the random nature of Virtual Sports and the fact that this will produce more unpredictable results, I am also unconvinced that any betting ‘strategy’ which relies on looking for patterns or being able to predict the results, will work in Virtual Sports. Such strategies are useless in slots gaming and to me, they cannot then be applied to Virtual Sports, which sees its results worked out in a very similar way.

As such, I think random betting on a variety of odds selections is the best approach to Virtual Sports and the key factor here is that you enjoy your betting and bet within your means and only with what you can afford to lose. If you stick to that simple maxim, then you can find Virtual Sports betting offers you a hugely enjoyable diversion from real sports.

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Ian John

Ian John is an expert across many realms of online gambling, both in US and international markets. Based in the UK, Ian covers sports betting, poker, and the regulated online casino and esports betting markets for a wide number of industry-focused publications.

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