Virgin Lets You Bet on Games, Win Exotic Prizes

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I met up with Virgin Gaming at E3 2010 to learn more about its online gaming service. Meant to supplement existing services like PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, Virgin's service lets players bet on games and win prizes.

Players are assigned skill levels as they play. This helps gamers find matches that are competitive and fair. According to the company:

    Everyone loves a fair fight. Win with grace and take beat-downs with dignity on a safe and secure global platform. Skill ratings help you find and challenge members with similar gaming abilities, while our reputation system helps keep the action clean. To top it off, our automatic results verification ensures that your hard earned victories will be justly rewarded.

In the case of players intentionally quitting or matches ending early due to a lost Internet connection, Virgin's customer service will serve as the arbitrator. The company rep I spoke with promised that the customer service reps speak English, understand gaming terminology, and will fairly award a winner if applicable.

There have been several services that allow gamers to bet on matches, but Virgin has the potential to stand out with its prizes. The company rep claimed that other branches of Virgin will work with Virgin Gaming to provide prizes. I was given several examples that ranged from ordinary to exotically awesome. An ordinary prize would be free service on Virgin Mobile. Exotic prizes include a trans-Atlantic LAN party in the sky on Virgin Atlantic or a trip to space on Virgin Galactic.

Hopefully the rep was being honest with his examples. I’d love for a gamer (preferably me) to win a trip to outer space just to tell Lord British, "Been there. Done that."

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