Sportradar announced Thursday the launch of Virtual Cricket In-Play, thus strengthening its portfolio of cricket products and services. The first in-play virtual-betting solution for the sport, the new product fully leverages Sportradar’s historic database to generate a “real-match” cricket experience in a virtual setting.
Cricket has approximately 2.5 billion fans worldwide, and its popularity has grown amongst bettors, generating an estimated turnover of €80 billion ($84.4 billion) annually for sportsbook operators, according to a study cited by the sports technology company.
Virtual Cricket In-Play adds to Sportradar’s overall cricket offering which is underpinned by proprietary data collection tool Cricket Live Score Plus (CLS+) and boasts official data and audio-visual content from the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Modeled on the T20 format of the game, Virtual Cricket In-Play’s hyper-real 3D animation engine puts the fans at the center of 400 million unique game situations and opens new business opportunities for operators worldwide wanting to enrich engagement.
🏏Virtual sports betting has evolved from an ‘add on’ into a valuable part of a betting operator’s ‘always on’ offering, with 24/7 engagement opportunities.
We are excited to announce the launch of the world’s first virtual cricket in-play solution.https://t.co/XYnKALxDOm pic.twitter.com/1haP8xSnUp
— Sportradar (@Sportradar) May 19, 2022
“More than 3.8 billion unique video seconds bring to life the complexity and excitement of the game with matches featuring the top eight teams from India’s leading T20 competition,” the company explained in a press release.
Playing out matches live and in full, games include 20 overs per team plus super overs in the event of draw. Sportradar’s team of cricket experts and data engineers process millions of data points from thousands of real cricket matches to fuel the odds and probabilities within the solution’s live betting markets.
Frank Wenzig, Managing Director of Gaming at Sportradar
Virtual Cricket In-Play offers live bets on 56 matches a season, creating more than 10,000 individual betting opportunities over the same period. The product offers ball-by-ball betting and all major betting markets including Back and Lay.
Frank Wenzig, Managing Director of Gaming at Sportradar, said: “The exponential growth of cricket worldwide has created unprecedented demand for associated content. As cricket fans, and fans of sport more broadly, engage more deeply with data-driven content, we are deploying the full extent of our technological capabilities to deliver a unique fan experience that empowers our clients to engage around the clock with cricket lovers.”
Virtual Cricket In-Play is the latest addition to Sportradar’s portfolio of virtual sports betting solutions including Virtual Football, Virtual Basketball, Virtual Tennis In-Play and Virtual Baseball In-Play and follows the recent launch of the company’s Virtual Sports Bundesliga title.
