The tennis alternative provides a gambling option while live tournaments are suspended
There is a lot of uncertainty in the world to estimate the time in which businesses and peoples’ lives can return to some level of normality. Like never seen before, the whole world suspended the most popular sports events and that many fans are in lockdown, missing their preferred forms of entertainment. Luckily, artificial intelligence (AI) has been developing for a while now and has made enough advancements to offer a very special product so tennis fans can enjoy. IMG Arena, along with ATP Media, are teaming up to bring the production of the ATP Tour to the fans.
With this creation, all nine tournaments that are part of the ATP Masters 1000 series will be featuring the world’s first officially branded virtual tennis product, designed for the sports betting market. These series will offer the highest category of events – in men’ tennis only – besides the four Grand Slams. According to the information shared by IMG Arena, this new service “will help sportsbook partners fill the void whilst the ATP Tour is suspended” due to the coronavirus pandemic. For now, live tennis action will remain suspended until at least June 7.
The service still needs some tweaking to go through, and it is unknown which bookmakers will be offering betting on virtual matches. IMG Arena is able to expand its virtual offerings after it purchased Leap Gaming in June 2018 and, ever since then, it has produced virtual games for other sports, including golf, motorsport, soccer, horse racing, speedway, greyhound racing and cycling. It currently provides services to over 460 sportsbook operators across the world, “When we invested in virtual sports specialists Leap Gaming, our vision was to create official products and unlock new revenue streams and forms of fan engagement for our clients,” said Freddie Longe, IMG Arena’s managing director.
