Virtual racing
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Virtual racing is a recent offering from the "Big Four" bookmakers in the United Kingdom, along with some smaller firms. They offer punters the opportunity to place a wager on racing even after the day's race coverage, then watch the race on a TV screen. The races include virtual dog racing and virtual horse racing.
This opportunity to bet through does go with an edge to the house. Many betting shop punters have described these races as 'animal roulette' since the bookmaker knows exactly what the chance of each dog winning. Most races have an overround (bookmakers margin) of at least 10%. When these races can be as little as 3 minutes between each other this results in very unfavourable conditions for the gambler.
Virtual Racing is a visual representation of a computerised random number draw. The odds of the different horses (or dogs) are created by having the horses with the lower odds have more numbers in the draw than horses with higher odds. However, each number can only be drawn once and therefore the same selection can not come first and second.
Virtual Racing tracks include Brushwood, Steepledowns and Sprint Valley.
[edit] Online virtual racing
With the growth of bookmakers' share of the online market, they also offer online virtual racing. These are often included in the 'games' section of the website. But other providers such as SkyBet and William Hill let you watch it as an event. SkyBet have also used their parent company's position of a TV provider and used virtual racing to fill time slots on their Sky Vegas channel (Channel 845).
