Booky Bets on VR

UK bookmaker William Hill is using VR to increase the declining number of horse racing bets it is receiving. Gamblers can wear an Oculus Rift headset (or use any Google Cardboard-like device) to view a custom VR experience, developed by Unit9, called ‘Get in the Race’. Viewers ‘become’ one of the jockeys (passively – there are no controls) in a virtual recreation of a race at Kempton Park that took place in February this year. In the future, it may be possible to use the software to view and bet on a live race. (I recently heard an interesting programme on the radio that explained that there can be a significant downside to relatively small latency delays when betting on horse racing, especially in peer-to-peer betting. Some digital feeds are as much as 5-6 seconds behind “live” and punters actually at the course can exploit that against those that are betting based on the digital feeds – BR)