Is Virtual Horse Racing Legit?

Virtual horse racing was the first virtual sport to be introduced, and it has proven to be extremely common with gamblers. We’ll go into what it is in more detail later, but for now, let’s get down to the point: is it rigged, and does the punter stand a decent chance of winning?

While many soccer betting enthusiasts would happily bet on virtual horse racing and other virtual sports, others would avoid them because they believe they are rigged. There are many compelling reasons why you should avoid virtual sports betting, but one of them is the possibility that it is rigged. The bookmakers do not patch, rig, or exploit virtual sports, like racing.

What Is Virtual Racing and How Does It Work?

Although virtual racing is known as a form of virtual sports, it is more appropriate to consider it a form of casino wagering with horses (or digital football teams, racing cars or anything else). Like all non-live casino games, playing online roulette relies on Random Number Generator (RNG) software, which is perhaps the best comparison to make.

As previously mentioned, we are addressing non-live casino games. Live dealer casinos are essentially live streams of actual wheels and cards that work in the same way as a conventional casino. Digital horse racing is the same as digitized, effectively “virtual” games of roulette or blackjack (or just about anything else).

In a way, you’re not betting on a horse or a roulette wheel slot but rather on the amount that the RNG can produce. Graphics of a horse race or an online casino game may appear, but they are visual representations of the underlying RNG.

This works in roulette is more apparent because everyone can see that an RNG is programmed to produce a number between zero and 36. Even so, some players remain sceptical of technology and believe that online casinos are rigged or fixed. Others, on the other hand, believe the earth is flat and ruled by lizards!

How Does the Random Number Generator Work in Racing?

It is easy to comprehend how a Random Number Generator will produce a roulette winner. It produces a valid number, which is then graphically represented on a digital wheel by the ball landing in that number. But how does it work in a horse race to account for the fact that each horse has a different probability of winning and different odds?

Let us presume, for the sake of simplicity, that the bookmaker is not making a profit and that there is no overround. In this situation, both horses would be priced at evens in a two-horse race where both animals had an equal chance of winning. If there were eight horses in the race and they were all considered co-favourites, each would be given odds of 7/1. This means that if you bet £10 on all runners, you’ll break even and get your money back no matter what happens.

However, as previously mentioned, the RNG must account for the fact that the horses do not have an equal chance of winning in virtual horse racing, so how does it do so? In simple terms, if we think of the RNG as a raffle (apologies, but we now seem to have an analogy inside an analogy! ), the favourite virtual horse has more tickets in the raffle, even though each ticket has the same chance of winning.

Are RNGs truly random and fair?

We’ve discussed the math behind virtual racing and how RNGs are used, but we haven’t answered the topic of rigging issues. Let us reiterate what we said at the beginning of this article: virtual racing is not a fixed event.

We can say this with confidence for various reasons, the first of which is rational rather than evidence-based (which we’ll go through later). While our examples above assume no overround and no benefit for the bookmaker, the odds for virtual horse racing and other sports aren’t nearly as generous.

Instead of two horses with equal chances being priced at evens in a match bet, both horses will be available somewhere between 10/11 (overround of 104.8) and 8/11. (overround 115.8). We looked at the odds of a few virtual races at random and discovered that the overround was between 111 and 115. In the most basic of words, this means the bookie is the winner!