Live Interactive Horse Racing Service for 3G Mobile Phone Users

Europe: At The Races and William Hill announced the launch of the UK’s first live, daily, interactive 3G sports service on 3, the UK’s leading video mobile network. The service, which has its official launch today, has now been live and operational for over a month.

At The Races 3G will make available all of At The Races’ previews, news, analysis and UK and Irish horseracing content as a live broadcast to over 3 million subscribers on the 3 video mobile network. At The Races joins 3’s leading range of sports content over 3G, from UEFA Champions League action to highlights from Ricky Hatton’s big fight.

With over 6 million 3G handsets now in use in the UK, the mobile video market is tipped to explode as interactive content becomes more readily available to users via video short codes.

Matthew Imi, Chief Executive of At The Races said, "We are delighted to be the first UK broadcaster to launch a service of this kind and particularly pleased that it is British and Irish horseracing leading the field. 3G technology is perfectly suited to coupling horseracing content with a betting application and our service is very straightforward to use with no need to download special players. In addition, transmission by means of the 3G video stream is no more than a second behind the TV broadcast.”

Gareth Jones, COO of 3, commented: “This new TV streaming service launched first on 3 means racing fans up and down the country won’t miss a thing. 3’s customers already enjoy the best 3G services in the UK, whether that’s watching Ricky Hatton’s big fight or watching all the action from the Big Brother house live on mobile. “

The At The Races 3G service is also the first to mix interactivity with video content via short code access.

Through an agreement with William Hill, the world’s largest telephone bookmaker, At The Races 3G allows users to place bets while they watch live racing on their phone.

Using their video call function users simply dial 83415 on their handset to view live ATR TV coverage with full commentary and then press ‘1’ at any time to connect directly through to the William Hill call centre. From there they can place a bet, if they are over 18 with a valid account, while they watch and press ‘#’ to revert instantly to the live coverage with full audio feed.

David Harding, Chief Executive of William Hill, said: “As the world’s largest telephone betting operator we have been looking for some time at what opportunities 3G might afford us. We believe that this market has a lot of potential and are very pleased to be working with At The Races to deliver this unique service exclusively for our customers.”

Matthew Imi added, “The launch of At The Races 3G is simply another example of how we intend to make top quality British and Irish racing content available to as many people, and via as many distribution platforms, as possible. Coupled with the considerable strengths of William Hill in the telephone betting market we think ATR 3G will be a very attractive service and look forward to marketing the product with our mobile network partners in the coming months.”

The At The Races 3G service will shortly be available to Vodafone and Orange customers.

The At The Races 3G service is powered by Requestec which aims to launch a number of similar short code applications for other brands.

Video call charges for the At The Races 3G service are billed by the network operator on a per second basis at £1.00 per minute.

Users wishing to bet over the service must be registered customers of William Hill or can register when they opt to go through to the call center to place a bet.