Whilst trainers and owners count the cost of the ban on UK horse racing due to the equine flu outbreak and are currently doing everything possible to protect their horses from catching it, betting shop operators are relying on their virtual horse races to carry them through the lull in racing.
Punters have often overlooked the virtual races that are available every minute a betting shop is open, for unlike real life racing, there is no real skill in trying to work out which horses will win those races.
The way in which a virtual horse race works is fairly straight forward, for they are games that use random number generators and computer graphics to both work out the winners and then show the races being run.
A list of horses is selected for each virtual race, and each of them are allocated odds, those odds being based on the amount of numbers attached to them that the random number generators could select.
It is best to compare such races to a raffle or draw, with the favourites to win a race having more tickets in the draw and the outsiders having fewer tickets for that draw.
Once the random number generator has selected the finishing order of each horse in the race, the computer will then generate the graphics and animations of each horse and will then show the race being run on one of the TV screens in a betting shop.
One benefit of placing a bet on such a race is that there are never any fallers on virtual hurdle and jump races, and every single horse has a chance of winning.
