Nordeus and Win launch a social sports-betting game on Facebook

Sports game developer Nordeus has teamed up with social casino firm Win to publish a social sports-betting game on Facebook. The title shows there is still some intersection between the separate worlds of real-money online gambling and social sports games.

The game, dubbed “Sportster — Bet and Win,” is not a real-money gambling game. Rather, players can place bets on soccer matches using virtual currency. You can pay real money for this virtual currency, but you can’t cash it out. Such games have been labeled “virtual currency” games to distinguish them from real-money gambling, which is not legal in a lot of territories.

The category of social sports games is getting more crowded, particularly as gamemakers and online gambling firms realize that the $1.7 billion social casino game market is oversaturated. The combination of Nordeus and Win is clearly a move to bring more firepower to the social sports game market.

Sportster lets its users place virtual currency bets on live soccer matches being played in the English Premier League, the Bundesliga in Germany, Spain’s Primera División, and other professional football leagues as well as on virtual matches where the outcomes are determined using real-world stats and the game’s odds-prediction engine.

The game is debuting first on Facebook as a test of fans’ intuition and sports knowledge. Players can bet on the final score, halftime score, or the over/under for total number of goals in real-world matches or virtual matches. Players can place three-way bets, handicap bets, and double-chance bets. As players level up, they can unlock interactive quests that add a new layer of challenge to the experience.

Nordeus, based in Belgrade, Serbia, makes the popular Top Eleven soccer game, which has more than 12 million monthly active users on mobile and Facebook. Win, which is backed by online gambling firm Bwin.party, publishes social casino games such as Slots Craze and Stardust Casino.

“Nordeus fans requested the ability to bet on sports matches, and we’ve been hard at work designing a dynamic new gaming experience for them,” said Nebojsa Djuric, the project manager at Nordeus, in a statement. “Together with Win, we’ve created the ultimate fan experience in Sportster — Bet and Win where football fans from all over the world can bet on real and virtual matches in an entirely new way.”

“Sportster — Bet and Win is one of the first and most unique social sports-betting games,” said Barak Rabinowitz, the CEO of Win. “Virtual match-betting with interactive features like ‘Bet Race’ keep the heart-pumping action going even when there are no real-world matches happening.”

The game is in its open beta test, and it is available in 15 different languages. Nordeus has more than 150 employees, and Win has more than 100. Rivals in social sports-betting games include Fanhood, BetAmerica, and DraftKings. Gibraltar-based Win was founded in 2012, and it has $50 million in funding from Bwin.party.