Peter Ivanov: "Building the habit, not harvesting it: Virtual sports in LatAm and esports in Africa"

Peter Ivanov, the Head of Product (Trading Stream) at DATA.BET, talks about why virtual sports requests come from regulated markets first, how the company rebuilt its bot-vs-bot virtual football for Latin America, what makes game-engine fixtures harder to manipulate, and why localization, depth, and betting on the stream will shape the segment next.

Q: DATA.BET has been strengthening its virtual sports offering, launching in new markets and recently pushing further into Latin America. Has interest in virtual sports been climbing as regulated sports betting continues to expand?

Regulation doesn't make players want virtual sports. What it does is strip away the tools operators used to compete with, and the content is what's left. Brazil is a good example: you can no longer run bonuses or free bets, so you need a better book and something nobody else offers. That's where the requests come from, and it's why they come from regulated markets first.

The other point is that virtual sports isn't one product, and the generic view hides what's actually happening. The older animated engines, where a result is drawn and a video plays over it, are flat. They've been around for years, and they are what they are. The growth is on the game-engine side, where the fixture is actually played out. Any single growth figure for virtual sports averages those two together and describes neither.

For example, our bot-vs-bot virtual football was built first for Europe. Then, we customized the offering for LatAm and designed one around the teams, leagues, and playing patterns that matter to that audience: Brazil's top-tier league and South America's premier club tournament, with rosters kept up to date to stay close to real-world lineups.

Q: What is the main appeal of virtual sports, and how are consumers responding to the product? There is growing distrust around some professional competitions, with fans increasingly concerned about players manipulating games. Are you seeing a similar concern around virtual sports, or does the controlled nature of the product have the opposite effect?

Familiarity. The squads are the ones the player already follows, and we update the content as the real world moves: transfer windows, promoted and relegated sides, and format changes. Players notice when a squad is out of date, and they enjoy it when the virtual version reflects reality. People already enjoy playing the same game titles and watching their favorite teams, so why not have a bit of both?

On trust, the concern is real, and it's pointed at the right places. Manipulation exists. It's rare relative to how much sport is monitored, and the reason it feels bigger than it is is that detection has improved significantly. We simply see more of it now.

I won't pretend esports is clean either. It has its own problem, and it lives in the lower tiers, where prize money is small and betting turnover isn't. The real question is what we do about it, and I believe there has been movement in the right direction.

What's different with a game-engine fixture is that there is nobody in the loop with anything to gain. No players, no team news, nobody to approach. Nobody outside the system can influence the outcome. That's a different risk profile, and it lets us address the issues we see in traditional sports and esports while maintaining the same level of entertainment for players.

Q: Why should operators look to bolster their portfolios with virtual sports? Is there a clear commercial logic behind adding the product, and what does it bring to an operator's overall offering?

There is, and the first reason is simple: it fills the gap. What does your sportsbook show at four in the morning, or in the weeks between domestic seasons? Every sportsbook has to answer that question.

Second, it's automated end-to-end and runs at volume. Fixtures schedule themselves, prices come off the engine, and settlement happens on its own. You're adding a large number of events that already have a core audience, plus occasional bettors who prefer this product to low-tier fixtures.

Third, there's nothing to investigate. No market suspended over a rumor, no fixture voided, no bets reopened three weeks later because a result is under review.

Fourth, it performs. Turnover repeats week to week instead of spiking, and margin lands close to what you configured, because there are no hidden pitfalls. We see this in our own numbers: virtual sports was one of the most consistently expanding verticals in DATA.BET's portfolio throughout 2025, with turnover growing 2.5x year on year.

The case I'd actually make, though, is the last one: it doesn't push the player outside their zone of interest. When the real football stops, most books send that customer to the casino tab, to crash games, or nowhere at all. This keeps them in football. Same teams, same leagues, same bet types, they already know how to use. Nobody has to learn a different product.

Q: You have also expanded your esports offering in Africa, including with Hollywoodbets. Is esports becoming a more popular vertical in the region, and what do you see as the main drivers behind its growth?

Hollywoodbets shows what working with the right partner can bring to South Africa; we'll be working together on initiatives to get esports where it needs to be.

A GeoPoll survey across six African markets this year found that 95 percent of bettors place their bets on a mobile device, and 71 percent are under 35, with 26 percent aged 18 to 24. The esports audience is the same demographic reached through the same channel, so for an operator that already has that traffic, the cost of adding the category is low. That's why it's being added now.

However, I'd be careful about treating Africa as a single entity. South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana don't behave the same in payments or regulation, and you can't generalize across them.

What I do see is that the driver isn't esports fandom, and that may be exactly what the region still lacks. Better access to equipment and a stronger local scene will drive growth further.

That order matters. Demand is still behind supply. South Africa is well ahead of the rest of the continent, and it's still early even there. Anyone launching esports now is building the habit and the data, not harvesting a mature vertical.

Q: Looking ahead, how much do you expect the virtual sports segment as a whole to grow, and what do you think will be the main drivers of that growth?

I don't put much weight on any single number here. The published forecasts are all over the place, anywhere from 10 percent to the low twenties a year, and they disagree because they're counting different products. Put the old animated engines and game-engine content in one bucket, and you get an average that describes neither. Whatever the headline figure, the growth sits in the game-engine half.

On drivers, the first is localization. The next wave is content built for a defined audience, their leagues, and their language, rather than a single global product. That's a content-production problem rather than a technology one, and it's what will set suppliers apart.

Second, depth. The product is no longer judged on whether you have it, but on how close it is to the real thing. That raises the bar, and I'd expect volume to concentrate around fewer suppliers as a result.

Third, betting on the stream. Overlays with low enough latency to bet on the broadcast itself work better on a short fixture than on a long one, because the cycle ends before attention drifts. And we launched In-Stream Betting back in April to remove that step. It keeps markets, odds, and the bet slip on the same screen as the stream, and cutting the time it takes to place a bet is what builds loyalty over the long run. That's why it went live with virtual sports first, where the short cycle and near-zero latency suit it best.

Those three points are where we'll focus as a company, meeting and anticipating our partners’ demands.

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