Things have just got a whole lot more interesting in the world of esports betting this week with some huge news from top esports betting provider Unikrn. The Las Vegas-based company has announced not one, but two brand new esports betting themed services. The first is a new live esports betting platform, and the second is its own Virtual Esports betting service.

Unikrn’s Esports Streamer Betting Service

While In Play betting has been available on sports betting sites for a considerable time now, a lack of expertise and understanding of how esports gaming markets work has meant that traditional betting companies have been a little wary. However, as you can read in our Unikrn review, they have taken the bull by the horns and have developed what they feel is a workable way to allow fans to bet on any top streamer’s gameplay.

The software powering this new form of In-Play betting on esports is complicated. It starts with the creation of AI trading bots. These have been programmed to understand how popular games actually work, the interfaces used, and which components of a game are streamed. Then, the bots can use all this information to provide odds on a number of different markets.

Furthermore, as the game unfolds on the stream, the bots will update the odds in real time. The technology is truly astonishing and has led Unikrn CEO Rahul Sood to claim that the new technology powering this innovation is “five years ahead of any other bookmaker in this space [esports] and light years ahead of what is possible in a traditional sports world.”

More praise

Indeed, so impressive is Unikrn’s new software, that Sood revealed he has demonstrated their esports In-Play betting service to traditional bookmakers whose “minds were blown.” This suggests Unikrn may be able to recoup some of the development costs for the technology by licensing their software to partners on a B2B basis.

The software will be available for players across four continents. And it will include a number of other data factors, such as tracking streamers performance over time, as well as offering access from mobile devices as well as desktop or laptop computers.

Speaking about the launch, Sood stated:

“Streamers are the future of celebrity, entertainment, performance and athleticism, so finding a zero-friction way to let fans engage and bet was essential for the future of our industry. “Not only are fans now able to watch and directly engage with streamers, but they’re able to experience the full thrill of victory along with the player on screen. This is a level of interactivity only dreamed off in the old world of sports and casino betting.”

Following a similar train of thought, Unikrn COO Andrew Vouris stated:

“Unikrn is creating a fully-engaging platform to tap the potential of this unprecedented volume of competition-based entertainment. Streamers are the star athletes of a new generation, and they’re always on. “Unikrn has made breakthroughs in technical and efficiency challenges which are shattering the mould of what is possible.”

At the moment, we don’t know which top streamers’ feeds Unikrn will let offer betting. We also don’t know on which sports the company intends to focus. That said, further details on the service are expected to come in the next few months. It would be a huge surprise if a number of different streamers, encompassing all the popular esports, would not be part of the initial release.

Unikrn’s Virtual Esports betting service

Unikrn will also become one of the world’s first companies to offer a form of Virtual Esports betting. The new Unikrn Virtual service takes a novel approach to allowing customers to bet on a randomly created Virtual Esports event every two minutes.

Using past rounds from iconic games, starting with CS:GO but with plans to introduce more games over the coming months, an algorithm will use archive footage from a large pool of games, together with display techniques that have been specifically developed by Unikrn in order to create a random Virtual Esports round of CS:GO.

For each round, players will be able to bet on a number of self-generated markets for that game, complete with the odds provided for each potential selection. Players then have a short amount of time to place their bet before the actual footage of the game starts and results are determined.

Of course, the footage and outcome of the Virtual Esport is randomly decided by the software. And the number of matches from which action can be cherry-picked for each Virtual Esports game is large. This all helps ensure there is significant differentiation between each Virtual Esports game.

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The betting options for the Virtual Esports will include the upcoming round or final score. The software is set to roll out across 2019 and beyond in the locations where Unikrn holds a license.

Virtual Sports betting services are the third biggest earner for online bookmakers in the UK. In fact, only horse racing and football betting bring in more revenue.