UltraPlay to allow first live bets on the FIFA Interactive World Cup

15 August 2017

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Betting provider UltraPlay has today announced that it will provide live betting for the Grand Finals of FIFA Interactive World Cup 2017.

The FIWC finals kick off in London on Wednesday August 16th and the grand final is scheduled to take place at around 6pm GMT on August 18th. UltraPlay looks set to be the only provider to offer live betting on the event, meaning operators which use the company’s live odds such as Vitalbet, Loot.bet and EBettle will have in-play markets for the Grand Finals over the 16th to 18th.

Peter Ivanov, UltraPlay

FIWC is an official FIFA tournament organised in cooperation with EA Sports. This will be its 13th edition, and London will host the 32 Grand Finalists who are aiming to be crowned the winner. The tournament is on both PlayStation®4 and Xbox One, and the prize pool for this year is ten times that of 2016. The victor shall receive $200,000 with $40,000 going to the runner up. Last time around in New York, the winner received $25,000.

Peter Ivanov, Head of Esports trading at UltraPlay said: “Led by the mission and experience of building a betting brand that appeals to esports fans, UltraPlay is constantly improving its esports odds provision and betting options to offer next level of gaming experience. That was the core idea behind the company’s decision to become the first iGaming provider offering live betting on FIFA Interactive World Cup Grand Final – the highly ranked and prestigious international tournament followed by millions of fans worldwide.”

UltraPlay has stated that it believes FIFA holds significant potential to have ‘a leading role in the esports betting scene’. As of right now though, FIFA esports’ viewership remains very low in comparison with the esports titles which see the most bets; League, Dota and CS:GO. 

For those interested in discussing the potential of FIFA esports as a betting market, and issues in and around esports gambling more generally with Ivanov they can do so at our next ESI Forum at Fnatic’s Bunkr on August 31st. The UltraPlay Head of Esports Trading will be on the panel discussing the current challenges and opportunities in esports betting, and the UltraPlay team will be around mingling throughout the evening.

Less than a third of tickets still remain for the event and you can secure yours and find out more about it here

Esports Insider says: We expected there to be a far stronger selection of markets than for last year’s FIWC but we didn’t anticipate live odds for the FIFA Interactive World Cup quite yet. It’ll certainly be interesting to see what kind of volume the operators see on this; the community’s viewership is generally low but with the number of football clubs fielding players this year and a boosted prize pool it could garner some considerable attention.