Fantasy sport, also going by the name rotisserie sport or roto, refers to any of a number of games that let people dabble in the virtual season of a sport. The popularity of fantasy could be surprising to those who are non-consumers of such an activity and are outside looking in. Fantasy sport as we know it today was popularized by a group of journalists in the 1980s who created Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. The league got its name from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Française, where its founders met for lunch and first played the game. The name stuck and is a widely accepted alternative name to fantasy sports. Popular portals ESPN and CBS were among the first to host fantasy sports on their platforms. Nowadays, we see that millions around the globe are indulging themselves in fantasy sports. According to The Mint, the Indian fantasy sports market is no slouch boasting 180 million players in its fold and is quite close to the 329 million that play in the US – the world’s largest market of fantasy sports. Fans of fantasy sports are often less taken up by the match’s outcome and instead focus on the individual performance of players across teams that make up their squad. The basic premise of the game lies in outsmarting your rivals by using your knowledge of the chosen sport in combination with the experience gained by playing over the years. The emergence of this phenomenon empowers players by giving them the option to be more than just armchair managers, and based on their own knowledge, experience, and study of the game, they can beat their friends and win some financial reward in the process.
Some of the most prominent fantasy cricket games are as follows:
1. MPL Opinio:
Opinio from the house of MPL is all about summoning all the knowledge you have accumulated over the years and putting it to the test. The topics on which you get to test your awareness include sports, movies, and other trending topics. The game itself is fairly simple. In front of you, there will be tiles placed face-up. Touch any of them to turn them over and answer the questions in the allotted time. That is all there is to it. Lucky participants even get to win real money for the correct answers. All these features and more make MPL Opinio your go-to medium for playing prediction games online.
2. Striker Club:
Striker Club is a fantasy cricket game with a twist. Instead of forming virtual teams, players get to collect and own player cards. Instead of a whole squad of eleven players, this game format requires only five players a side. They are allotted points depending on the card value and rarity. There are multiple tier levels of cards, and this feature encourages players to indulge in a virtual treasure hunt for them, thereby making the process of filling up the team roster an exciting one. Apart from earning money in matches, players can also pawn their cards for real money.
3. FanCraze:
The idea of a new fantasy cricket platform with the aim of guaranteeing an innovative experience that would make it stand out among the crowd took root during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021. Thus FanCraze was born, and with the official endorsement of none other than the ICC, it is sure to make a sizable dent in the fantasy cricket industry. The ICC worked closely with FanCraze to deliver Crictos – the world’s first official digital collectibles program. Collecting Crictos packs is the only way a dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast can access and own official digital collectibles from the ICC’s events. If you are looking to own a piece of cricketing history, you know what to do. Users of FanCraze can sell, trade, or participate in NFT auctions on the marketplace. These NFTs can be used for cricket-based games, and players bag karma points that increase the utility of their NFTs. Each pack they purchase contains between three to five Crictos of varying rarities. Although it is not viable to know of the pack’s contents prior to purchasing it, the probability of the tiers they may expect will be made known to them.
4. LeagueX:
Playing League X is as simple as it gets and involves only three easy steps, form your best squad, pick a match, and enroll in leagues to win real cash. Any winnings are transferred almost instantaneously. Your chances of winning depend on how adept you are at forming the squad that will represent you in the game. League X lets you create up to four squads for a match, and this gives you a greater chance of winning. To make things more favorable for you, it is possible to confirm your team even after the toss has been taken. Handy tip – Choose a super substitute who will be swapped with the weakest performing player in your team automatically.
5. 11Wickets:
Since its inception in 2011, 11 Wickets has experienced accelerated growth and is one of the fastest-growing fantasy cricket applications in India, boasting of introducing to the platform three million players in just one calendar year. Aside from cricket, 11Wickets.com offers the option of fantasy football for fans of the beautiful game. The platform has a collaboration in place with Sportradar, a leading technology company, to provide live scores along with pre- and post-match analysis across their portfolio of games.