As New Jersey gears up for its Supreme Court case on sports betting, a virtual type of sports games is being introduced to online players in the state.
Chicago-based Rush Street Interactive, which operates PlaySugarhouse.com in the state, has been approved by New Jersey regulators to offer virtual computer-generated sporting “events,” including soccer, horse, dog and vehicle racing. Since the outcome of the games is decided by random number generating technology, they do not count as actual sports betting. The system uses the Remote Gaming Server platform from Spin Games and content via Inspired Gaming.
Company president Richard Schwartz told the Associated Press the games—which are now available at PlaySugarhouse—could help prepare for the possibility that the high court could legalize real-world sports betting.
“It’s computer-generated, and not based on any current active live sports event, so it’s not legally considered sports betting,” he said. “You can acquire a database of people with an interest in sports betting.”
Virtual sports games technology is already used in some Nevada casinos and is widely used throughout Europe, but this is the first time it will be available over the internet in the U.S., the AP said.
Schwartz said virtual sports betting can account for as much as 20 percent of a sports book’s revenue in Europe.
“We expect the same results in the New Jersey market,” he told the AP. “Virtual sports betting is used effectively to fill in time between races and in time periods where there are no real-time sporting events.”
The games were created by Inspired Entertainment and were tested by New Jersey gambling regulators before approval.
Kent Young, CEO of Spin Games, said. “Inspired Entertainment’s choice of our ROC 3 technology as the backbone for the Inspired Virtual Sports deployment in New Jersey iGaming, is a landmark achievement for Spin Games. The launch is further evidence of our commitment to enhancing our RGS functionality and providing proven winning content offerings, within social and real money iGaming markets. Our partnership and deployment with Inspired Entertainment, further enhances our premier position of providing premium custom and third party content to the global iGaming market.”
