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Golden Race World Cup will be ‘Game of the year’


Award-winning virtual sports developer Golden Race is launching a brand new virtual football product ahead of the World Cup.

The Golden Race World Cup mirrors the competition format of the World Cup in Russia, with 32 nations split into eight groups with knockout rounds and a final. The new game is being made available to African operators free of charge via a dedicated satellite channel and to any retail outlet with the company’s Golden Race boxes.

The company has upgraded the visuals from its Virtual Football 3D product, which won the SBC Award for best Virtual Football product in 2017, but has also completely revamped the game engine to give it a fresh new feel.

Golden Race CEO Martin Wachter commented: “The World Cup is of global interest, but the time differences sometimes make it impossible for players to back their teams. Our new virtual game can provide a tournament every hour meaning that no matter where you are in the world, you can play your team in your time zone.”

Fully customizable, the Golden Race World Cup can condense the 60 game tournament into a short a period as 30 minutes or up to an hour, with the group stages playing out across six ‘matchdays’ where one match would be simulated onscreen with the concurrent matches represented in the live score format. The knockout matches then commence with penalty shootouts should they be required.

It’s not just the visuals that have been upgraded, the whole betting experience has been enhanced to make it feel more real for punters. Golden Race has analyzed the performances of the teams going to the World Cup, as well as taking into account the current FIFA rankings, and built this into the game in order to make it more realistic.

Game architect Laurent Samani explained: “By using the FIFA rankings and actually observing the different skills of the teams, we have developed the game to feel real both one the pitch and in the betting interface.”

21 betting markets are made available to bet on, mixing the most popular group match markets (1X2, Correct Score) with the more traditional cup markets (Qualify/Outright). To help punters make a decision, key stats and summary are displayed before the matches and the most played markets are displayed longer on screen. However, if a punter isn’t interested in studying the form, Quick Combo Bets allow the auto-selection of four types of frequent combination bets.

Wachter added: “ This will be Game of the Year 2018. Everyone will be playing it during the World Cup and once that has finished they will still be playing long afterward. That is why it is especially useful for operators as it gives their football customers something to bet on until the new season.”

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