The emerging sport, CarJitsu, has recently been approved by Garden State regulators as an addition to sportsbook operators’ betting menus.
Buckle Up!
It’s a sport most people never knew they wanted and relatively few even knew existed. But it has become popular enough that the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has approved CarJitsu on the sports betting offerings of its mobile sports betting platform providers.
The Pro League Network (PLN) is the organization behind the promotion and it is no stranger to off-beat modern sports. Professional putt-putt and slap-fighting are two other off-the-beaten-path competitions it sponsors. PLN has relationships with major domestic sports betting platforms like DraftKings, BetMGM, and others which has given the organization credibility in the sports betting landscape.
PLN co-founder Bill Yucatonis stated, “We wanted to stand it up there first, and we felt if we could meet all the expectations and requirements in New Jersey, it gave us a flight path for other parts of the country.”
The company’s newest entry, CarJitsu, along with the SlapFIGHT Championship and World Putting League are among 16 sports that are either active or in development. PLN’s website articulates the thrust of the company’s design:
“We are a sports wagering company at our roots, focused on bringing exclusive, fun, and inherently bettable sports for sportsbook operators to fill under-optimized dayparts on the sports betting calendar.”
PLN’s objective is to serve a niche market in parts of the calendar that are devoid of many wagering options. Mike Salvaris, PLN’s other co-founder, said, “Three of the four professional sports have an overlapping schedule in the months they are active, let alone the days of the week, and we thought there was an interesting opportunity there to really own the other parts of the schedule.”
CarJitsu’s Instagram boasts over 145,000 followers and has hundreds of videos showing the sport in action. It has all of the tactics of jiujitsu with a fraction of the space of a traditional mat.
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If you didn’t know, CarJitsu features two competitors buckled into the driver and passenger seats of a car, and when the whistle blows, the athletes unbuckle in a hurry and employ their most lethal submission attacks on their rivals. They are allowed to use the seatbelt as a strangulation method to effectuate a tap out.
The creator of CarJitsu is a 37-year-old Russian martial arts master, Vik Mikheev, who holds black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Judo as well as a PhD in Mathematics. He created the concept during the early months of the global pandemic as a way for martial arts practitioners to train. It also provides real-world experience in the event of a carjacking.
Although the sport has its roots in Russia, it has taken hold in other parts of the world including the United States. It is essentially grappling inside the cozy confines of a car and the sport can now be seen in over 100 nations and has millions of impressions.
According to Grappler Insider, “A match has two periods of three minutes each, where the competitor switch the driver’s and passenger seat sides; and the points are awarded for gaining an advantageous position and for a submission.”
