When it comes to online gambling, one of the interesting things which we often note is that sports stars are called upon to appear on behalf of gaming companies and advertise their services to the general public. Recently we wrote about how the tennis star Rafael Nadal has been playing games at PokerStars in order to raise publicity there, and of course at the ICE Totally Gaming conference we were bound to see a few sporting stars make an appearance. Rather than sponsoring an online casino such as Slotsplus, they were actually appearing in order to promote the collaboration which has been made between Real Sports Global, and Astra Games, which will allow Astra to utilise the Real Sports Global subsidiary 5050Sports as a bonus double up feature in the new land-based slot machine game Mega Grandstand for the UK market.
The stars in question who appeared on the day were the former England football star’s Michael Owen and Viv Anderson, who were joined by the Ashes winning England cricket captain Michael Vaughan at the Astra Games stand. This was one of the standout features of the day, if only for the celebrity value that it had, and it also provided a glimpse into just how exciting the game will be for sports fans. Michael Owen is the cover star of the football version and Vaughan will be the cricket star, and if you are a fan of boxing then you will also enjoy the variation starring Ricky Hatton, while darts fans will enjoy the theme starring Simon Whitlock. The game is presented by the broadcaster Jim Rosenthal alongside one of each of the four personalities in the virtual studio, as they interact with the game players who will place bets on the outcome of the officially licensed archive sports video footage which they are about to view.
“We are incredibly excited to be working with the team at Astra Games and to be launching 5050Sports into the land-based environment after its previous online success,” said Stuart Carr, CEO of Real Sports Global and founder of 5050Sports. “As part of the Novomatic Group of Companies, this is a major agreement with huge potential for 5050Sports.” They will have high hopes that the collaboration will be a successful one, as if it is then it will surely open the door for more collaborations in the future and more development of this gaming concept. The main aim of the appearance of the stars at the event was to raise awareness of the games which are now available and to attempt to bring in more customers who will want to have the games available through their venues. It is not yet clear whether they managed to take any orders at the event or sign a new partnerships, so it may well be that we have to wait a little while in order to hear news on that front, perhaps in the form of launch announcements.