Xboxist

Virgin Combines Betting with Multiplayer Gaming

If you aren't going anywhere exciting this summer, you can either look for a part-time job, or earn some money doing what you were planning anyways: play video games. Until August 8th, Virgin Gaming is picking up the tab for a summer long of multiplayer tournaments. You can choose between Madden NFL 10, FIFA 10 and Halo 3 at a variety of skill levels. Normally, members would have to pay tournament entry fees to compete for cash prizes, but Virgin wants to lure in new members and promote their service.

Every game you win in daily and weekly qualifiers adds one token to your account. Track your token collecting progress on the Red Hot Summer leaderboard and aim to finish strong: the top 256 players for each game, each month will receive a cash bonus in recognition of their Red Hot gamesmanship.

Looking for an even bigger prize? The top 128 of each game's leaderboard will gain free entry to an end of month tournament in July and August. These special invite-only tournaments offer a none-too-shabby prize pool of $2,500.

Daily and weekly tournaments will be available as free entry or $1 entry. So throw away that sunscreen, cancel your vacation and start planning your summer around the Red Hot Summer tournament calendar. These tournaments will be continuing all year long, and Virgin claims that the company is prepared to give away $1,000,000 USD worth of prize money this year as the company seeks to expand its presence in the video game niche.

You can read more about Virgin Gaming and register for free here.