Microgaming and Inspired pen deal to add virtual sports to company's content

Microgaming signing up to a partnership with another content provider has been pretty regular news over the last few years. The move has seen a diverse range of Microgaming slots released over the past 18 months in particular from a number of partner slots development studios all over the world.

However, Microgaming are looking beyond simply slot games to offer their customers a great deal which explains why the company has signed up to a partnership with Inspired Entertainment, which will bring Inspired's long list of games into Microgaming partner casinos.

Who are Inspired Entertainment?

If the name Inspired Entertainment rings a bell, then that is likely because they are a company that have been in business for many years and in addition to developing a small number of slot titles, the company has also earned a reputation as being one of the foremost developers in the Virtual Sports betting industry.

Inspired have provided a number of Virtual Sports titles to betting sites and casinos for many years now but this is the first time that they have linked up with Microgaming.

The agreement between the two companies will initially see 20 of Inspired Entertainment's most popular online slot games be available on the Microgaming platform, with plans in place to offer a range of Virtual Sports and Table Games shortly thereafter.

Speaking about the deal, Claire Osborne, the Vice President of Interactive at Inspired stated:

"We're very excited and proud to get our range of games live on Microgaming's content aggregation platform. The collaboration with Microgaming will enable us to increase our reach and brand visibility with operators. We look forward to providing Microgaming customers with access to our content."

In response, James Buchanan, the Director of Operations at Microgaming replied.

"We are pleased to collaborate with Inspired in a deal that will see us further expand our content offering. Inspired are market leading in the virtual sports sector of the industry and have a very strong regulatory market reach. We are delighted to be adding Inspired's slot games to our diverse and innovative content offering, with virtual sports and table games to follow."

"Providing our customers with a rich diversity of high-quality games that deliver ultimate gaming experiences to players is of paramount importance to us. Inspired will help us to achieve that by further enhancing our portfolio of partner games, particularly with the addition of virtual sports content."

It is very clear from Mr Buchanan's comments that while Microgaming will be happy to see additional slots added to their aggregated content platform, it is the future addition of Virtual Sports gaming that seems to be of primary interest to the company and there is a good reason for that.

Why do Microgaming want to offer Virtual Sports?

When a company is synonymous with producing slot games as Microgaming is, what would be the motivation for them to start offering something as different as Virtual Sports to their customers?

To understand this, we need to first understand just how large and appealing the Virtual Sports market is within the gambling industry at the moment. Although often included in statistics for sports betting, research has shown that after horse racing betting and soccer betting, Virtual Sports are the third highest earning betting option on sports betting sites.

What makes that statistic all the more remarkable is that Virtual Sports games are nothing like betting on Virtual Sports in many ways. Sure, you may feel like you are betting in a Virtual Football or Virtual Horse Race, but the outcome of the race is decided entirely by the programming of the software, with a hefty dose of randomness thrown in to ensure that the results are relatively realistic, but not predictable.

As such, one of the appealing things for Microgaming is that Virtual Sports betting is much more like slot gaming than real world sports betting, as like slots, at the heart of every Virtual Sports game is a random number generator.

In the United States legislators have moved to group Virtual Sports with slots and casino gaming, rather than sports betting, as they feel it is more attuned with casino gaming than sports. Suddenly, why Microgaming are so interested in Inspired Entertainment's Virtual Sports games starts to make much more sense.

Given that we already know there is a significant cross-over between those that bet on sports and those that play slot games, he fact Microgaming will soon be able to offer a wide range of Virtual Sports games to its customers from one of the premiere providers in the world today is very much a positive situation for customers.

What Virtual Sports does Inspired offer?

You can still see a number of Inspired's earliest Virtual Sports offerings at a number of sports betting sites around the world today, but the company has also been working on bringing new and more expansive and more attractive Virtual Sports offerings to customers in recent times and it is likely that it will be these more modern games which will be offered as part of the deal with Microgaming.

Some of the games on offer from Inspired which could be part of the deal with Microgaming include:

V-Play NFLA Legends Football

A Virtual American Football game that features members of the NFL Alumni, former players that have now retired from the game. This is one of the first Virtual Sports games (along with Virtual Darts) that uses former professional players as part of the game.

The game features many of the former players of teams in the NFL and runs for three minutes or more, depending on how the game is set up.

V-Play Soccer 3 (forthcoming)

One of the most eagerly awaited of the new Virtual Sports products. This soccer-based game will feature enhanced graphics and animations, camera angles and stadium design, as well as featuring full teams and kits for teams in Euro 2020, up to 8 goals per game and the first Virtual Soccer game to feature big football betting market such as betting on individual goalscorers in the game. It will also be the first Virtual Soccer game that will feature women's football.

V-Play Grand National

Inspired were the team behind the Virtual Grand National event that was screened live on British television at the start of April (and has been for the last three runnings of the race). They have utilised part of that software to offer punters a chance to bet on a Virtual Grand National race, featuring 40 runners as the real race and all run over the famous Aintree fences.

Other games include V-Play versions of Tennis, Cricket, Speedway, Motor Racing, Darts, Basketball, Stock Car Racing, American Football as well as several versions of Greyhound Racing, Soccer and Horse Racing.

Alongside the Virtual Sports offering, Microgaming will also be offering a selection of popular Inspired slots including Dragon Ways Multiplier, Golden 7s, Super Hot Mystery Wilds and Stacked Fire 7s.