GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 50 - August 2021

about A little bit more Alexis Z. He is 47 years old His favorite food is Valencian paella His sites are casinoduende.com casinoivan.com casinobike.com His favorite book is An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser He is living in Valencia, Spain His hometown is Odessa, Ukraine sports have become a window to a world of new possibilities in the betting industry. The constant desire to keep up with technological progress is forcing gambling developers, programmers and other IT specialists to create a great alternative to traditional sports tournaments. In other words, virtual sport is a computer simulation of a real sport event in accordance with all its canons, rules and principles. You can say that it is a set of scheduled games with fixed odds based on a random number generator to determine the winner. Of course, virtual sports have their advantages and disadvantages. This is a very broad topic that deserves a separate article. As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down most of the world. However, as far as virtual sports are concerned, I’m not afraid to say that, obviously, the pandemic has accelerated the development and popularization of virtual sports, particularly because of the faster introduction of new trends and the lack of choice for users. At the same time, virtual sports proved to be little dependent on live events and continued to evolve. As a result, the industry has demonstrated a good level of content generation and distribution that traditional sports did not manage even before the pandemic. The fact that virtual sports, to a certain extent, saved the betting industry in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic is undeniable proof that it is likely to continue to grow in the future. Today, soccer is the most popular virtual discipline in the betting industry. Virtual soccer simulation is no different from real soccer, all the rules and principles are followed. Following virtual soccer, this cybersports betting is developing as a direction much faster than traditional betting. As for the revenues, I would answer this question by giving the forecasts of analytical company Newzoo for the current year 2021. The cybersports audience growth rate in 2021 will be approximately 14%. The number of spectators of cybersports will grow to 307 million and the number of enthusiasts to 250 million. The total cybersports audience will be 557 million. I think that the betting industry with such multimillion audience, big investments and the annual growth of 200% of volumes should have the income of billions, don’t you think? Do you get a lot of crossover be- tween casino games players and virtual sports players? My guess is that it’s going to happen more and more often. Why? The answer lies in the very psychology of gamblers. Interestingly, the typical profiles of players who tend to play casino games and virtual sports games are much the same. Both want a fast gaming experience, a high frequency of gambling and a lower average betting expense, compared to betting in a live casino or on live sports. To speed up this process, I think it’s a task of both parties involved, the webmaster and the online casino operator. In other words, it is necessary to make an effort to create a certain interest in the player and to make it individual. Speaking of COVID-19, how else did it affect you personally and pro- fessionally? The global COVID-19 pandemic has certainly affected us all, both personally and professionally. I did not make any radical changes in response to the pandemic. As for the personal plan, I have not felt the impact of COVID-19 either, as I spend most of my time at home. And professionally, I won’t deny that in my case, the negative impact of pandemic is felt. According to the statistics of websites, there was a noticeable decline in player activity and, as a consequence, revenues. The main criterion for decline is fear and uncertainty about the future. Many of the potential players are out of work, and, as a consequence, there was an increased control of their financial situation. And all this is directly reflected on the statistics of players and deposits. Of course, much depends on individual countries. If we consider the Latin American countries, they are in a difficult situation and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for a long time. Odessa image photo by Hrecheniuk Oleksii/Shutterstock; Valencia image photo by karnavalfoto/Shuttersto ck; Valencian paella image photo by Siim79/Shutterstock GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES G P W A t i m e s . o r g 46