Test Run for Playtech’s First Virtual Sports Product for Retail Market

Gambling software development company, Playtech, has partnered with UK bookmaker, Coral, in order to test run its latest virtual sports product, its first to be launched for the retail market. For now, it will receive a trial launch in a total of 100 Coral shops across the UK, over the course of the next three months. If successful, the next step is to see the new product go live across Playtech's entire retail betting estate, made up of nearly 1,000 shops. The hope for this new virtual sports product is for it to deliver a more realistic experience to players, mirroring real-life accumulator bets, with a wide range of betting options to select from. It is equipped with a series of four matches which run all at once, every five minutes. Each match is 90 seconds long. Additionally, its games use a Linux hardware box solution for streaming. Because the matches run simultaneously, players may choose to view one of the games as the featured match, while updates for additional matches will be provided in the meantime. While this latest product is the first to be launched for the retail market, it is not the supplier's first cross-platform virtual product. In fact, it has previously launched virtual products, such as football, tennis, horse-racing, and greyhounds, with a basketball product scheduled to launch later in the year. Elliott Norris of Playtech Sports commented, “We've been working round the clock on a retail solution and firmly believe we've launched the best product on the market. Not only does it play extremely well, it looks great and is extremely simple and cost effective to set up, distribute and deploy.” Gaming director for Coral, Mark Kemp, stated, “The project was a delivered swiftly and promptly and we're delighted with the results. Playtech's new virtual sports retail product adds yet another dimension to the industry leading omni-channel customer experience we have across all channels.”