Public Gaming Magazine July/August 2020

40 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JULY/AUGUST 2020 WITHOUT LIVE SPORTS, INSPIRED ENTERTAINMENT FILLS THE GAP Virtual Kentucky Derby Attracts Millions of Viewers, Worldwide Attention I n the baseball fantasy movie Field of Dreams, one of the characters surveys the baseball eld built in an Iowa corn eld and points out the legendary players warming up: “Hey, that’s Smoky Joe Wood. And Mel Ott. And Gil Hodges.” All super stars, long since passed. A horse race version of Field of Dreams took place in May, with track fans certainly exclaiming: “Hey, it’s Seattle Slew. And there’s War Admiral. And Secretariat!” If only for a day (the rst Saturday of May, as usual for the Derby) and in highly- stylized animated form, Inspired Entertain- ment was able to provide sports fans with something they had been missing since early March – competition they could cheer for. “ is was a great event for everyone in- volved – Churchill Downs got to celebrate on their traditional Derby Day, racing fans got to see the greatest-of-all-time faceo , we had the opportunity to showcase the realism of our Virtual Horse Racing prod- uct, and it was all for a good cause,” said Brooks Pierce, President and COO of In- spired. “Virtual Sports have been popular in Europe for years, but putting together the Kentucky Derby: Triple Crown Show- down for a national television broadcast was a great marketing opportunity for our Virtual Sports in the U.S.” And they are catching on quickly in the U.S. Just within the last few weeks, the company announced the addition of DraftKings, FanDuel, Borgata and the Oregon Lottery to its customer base, as well as distribution deals with several RGS aggregators, including Playtech, Scienti c Inspired Entertainment’s Virtual Kentucky Derby was featured on NBC Sports By Jim Acton Lottery Industry Consultant