Exploring Esports: Dive into GRID's Case Study Articles

Inspired is Unlocking the Future of Esports Betting using GRID Data

grid.gg — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 17:14:00 +0000

Overview

Inspired Entertainment, Inc. has been developing and providing content, technology, hardware, and services for a variety of regulated betting operators around the world since its inception. Now, and in addition to there current portfolio of products, Inspired is looking towards the future of betting in the esports industry.

Inspired and GRID recently established a partnership focused on making this goal a reality, utilizing GRID’s Data Consumer Solutions and official data from the GRID Data Platform to power a virtual sports product that introduces a novel betting experience for CS:GO fans around the world.

Recognizing Opportunities in a Rapidly-Growing Industry

Over the last decade, the esports industry has continued to grow to impressive heights and develop as a multi-faceted ecosystem, with betting becoming a major player over time. This of course is what Inspired has been involved with outside of esports for years, and esports betting was the natural path of entry into the sector.

Inspired has developed virtual sports products for many traditional sports and is present in more than 32,000 retail channels, 100+ websites, and 35 countries. The success of virtual sports has proved itself in popularity, profit, and accessibility for traditional sports fans — and brining this concept to esports was the goal.

Inspired looked to GRID for the official esports data and industry knowledge, and to supply its developing virtual sports product with the data needed to power it.

Bringing an New Esports Betting Product to Life

Inspired and GRID established a partnership in May 2023, with the goal of brining each party’s expertise together, virtual sports and official esports data respectively, to create Re-Play eSports.

GRID is the commissioner of the global CS:GO competition, Champion of Champions Tour (CCT), a source of hundred of professional matches around the world since 2022. As a part of the newfound partnership, GRID is providing Inspired with official video feeds that are exclusive to CCT and will be showcased via Inspired’s Virtual Sportsbook and VPP platforms to new and existing customers.

Bets will be offered on a variety of possible outcomes including, which team will win, which team will get the first kill, and total number of
survivors. Additional bets include a range of prices such as Round Outcome, where bettors can predict the number of players still alive at the end of the round.

The Result: Re-Play eSports

Re-Play eSports is Inspired’s newest product, developing from the initial goal of fusing esports with virtual sports, and ultimately tapping into the future of the esports betting landscape.

Taking the wildly-popular global esport of CS:GO, a five versus five tactical FPS title, and meshing it together with the tried-and-tested betting experience in virtual sports aims to create a novel opportunity of engagement for esports fans. Many players who have grown up with competitive video games are now seeking gaming opportunities — Inspired and GRID are adapting the betting opportunities to fit the change in the community.

Key features include:

- Game footage from the popular global series of CS:GO competitions, The Champion of Champions Tour (CCT), which features players at the highest level from professional teams across the globe

- Events scheduled every three minutes and available 24/7

- Standard eSports bet markets offered, as well as additional betting opportunities for a wider range of prices, such as Round Outcome (including players alive at the end of the round), Round Winner, First Kill in the Round, Time of First Kill, and Total Kills in the Round

- Regulated as a Virtual Sports event and resulted by a certified Random Number Generator

- No streaming lag as Re-Play eSports events are resulted and streamed in real time

- Offered via Inspired’s Virtuals Sportsbook and VPP platforms to new and existing customers

The Re-Play eSports product has yet to be officially launched and available to the public. To learn more about the product, and to watch the official trailer, head to Inspired’s website.

GRID’s Products

About Inspired Entertainment, Inc.

Inspired offers an expanding portfolio of content, technology, hardware and services for regulated gaming, betting, lottery, social and leisure operators across land-based and mobile channels around the world. Inspired’s gaming, Virtual Sports, interactive and leisure products appeal to a wide variety of players, creating new opportunities for operators to grow their revenue.

Inspired operates in approximately 35 jurisdictions worldwide, supplying gaming systems with associated terminals and content for approximately 50,000 gaming machines located in betting shops, pubs, gaming halls and
other route operations; virtual sports products through more than 32,000 retail venues and various online websites; digital games for 170+ websites; and a variety of amusement entertainment solutions with a total installed base of more than 16,000 terminals.

Additional information can be found at www.inseinc.com.

The post Inspired is Unlocking the Future of Esports Betting using GRID Data appeared first on grid.gg.

Pinnacle’s Data-Driven Path from Traditional Sports into Esports

grid.gg — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 10:48:00 +0000

Pinnacle is one of GRID’s longest-standing partners. Learn how the company recognized the potential of esports and utilized GRID data to empower the industry.

Overview

Pinnacle is a name that has long been in the betting space, offering unique engagements for bettors since 1998, with a primary focus on online traditional sports wagering. As the betting industry grew and evolved over time, another industry was born and eventually found its way to overlapping with Pinnacle’s business model— esports.

Since 2010, Pinnacle has been offering esports as a part of its betting portfolio and has served as a pioneering entity in esports betting since then. In 2019, Pinnacle and GRID established their partnership with the intent to continue Pinnacle’s impact on the industry through the utilization of the GRID Data Platform.

Since the start of the partnership, Pinnacle has delivered four iterations of the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup with the support of GRID, as well as the first Pinnacle Cup Championship in 2022. This year, the two parties have renewed the partnership, and are collaborating for the return of the Pinnacle Cup to CS:GO.

A Clear Path From Traditional Sports

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, better known as CS:GO, is one of the largest esports titles in the world and has been seeing a rise in its player base for some time now. For a company such as Pinnacle — one which began its operations around traditional sports — esports offers a similar, but unique market. Many of the concepts you’d see with football, basketball, or tennis are present across esports as well, in professional teams and players, devoted fans, desire for betting opportunities, and more.

When entering the esports ecosystem, Pinnacle took their extensive sports book resume and branched off into an fast-growing opportunity to recreate this expertise outside of traditional sports. Like the sports-bet offerings before them, esports betting also requires bookmakers to have access to, and to provide, quality data that its users can be confident in when placing bets on the latest competitions. Pinnacle’s need for a top-quality esports data source is where GRID came into the picture back in 2019.

The other avenue that Pinnacle has taken since their esports debut lies on the opposite side of betting — the competition itself. With the intention of further empowering the esports industry, Pinnacle introduced the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup in 2021— taking their impact beyond the betting space.

Pinnacle’s dedication to the esports industry was something GRID admired back then, and does to this day. This shared vision of empowering esports, and the previously establish data partnership resulted in the two parties coming together for the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup.

Tapping Into Esports’ Digital Nature

Fast forward to 2023, where GRID and Pinnacle have renewed their partnership for a 5th consecutive year to power Pinnacle’s pioneering esports betting solutions and the continuation of the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup.

As Esports are naturally apart of a digital space, the opportunities that surround in-game data are much more fruitful than traditional sports. On top of that, the quality, speed, and granularity of the data offered to Pinnacle’s user base can exceed that of traditional sports when sourced from the GRID Data Platform.

Through GRID’s Data Consumer Solutions, Pinnacle’s esports betting products are powered by the GRID Data Platform — including various live and historic data feeds for multiple esports titles. Most recently was the addition of VALORANT in-game data, furthering the potential reach of Pinnacle’s products and overall user experience.

Additionally, for the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup and Pinnacle Cup Championship, GRID’s Esports Services are utilized in organizing the events. The GRID Esports Services are a complete technology and service toolkit consisting of tournament tooling, visualization products, and data infrastructure that supports the operation, integrity, security, and monetization of events available on the GRID Data Platform.

Pinnacle’s Data-Driven Success

The combination of GRID and Pinnacle’s expertise has resulted in three successful Pinnacle Cups since the start of the partnership, and a fantastic Pinnacle Cup Championship in 2022 that boasted a 250,000 USD prize pool and included some of the biggest CS:GO talents in the world — Heroic, Astralis, and Fnatic to name a few.

In April 2023, Pinnacle announced the return of the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup off the back of the successful competitions in 2022, and has expanded upon its predecessor. The expansion includes, four large-scale competitions taking place throughout 2023, two of which have a 50,000 USD prize pool, and brand-new LATAM competitions taking place in Brazil.

The Esports Hub on Pinnacle’s website serves as the go-to place for esports betting on their platform, where many different titles’ offerings are powered by GRID. And as a part of the partnership renewal earlier this year, Pinnacle was able to introduce bets on VALORANT for the first time, through GRID’s Data Platform (Possible through GRID’s exclusive partnership with Riot Games). VALORANT has grown in popularity at an astounding pace, and Pinnacle was able to scale their offerings in line with this growth.

GRID’s Products

About Pinnacle

Pinnacle has been offering bettors a unique alternative to other bookmakers since 1998. Since 2010, Pinnacle has played a pioneering role in the growth and development of esports betting options, as demonstrated with the creation of the Pinnacle Cup and its continued growth into 2023.

See more on Pinnacle’s websibe.

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