Get in the Race gives William Hill customers, and horse racing fans across the UK, an entirely new way to experience the sport: live in virtual reality.

Building on the incredible anticipation for virtual reality technologies among millennials in the UK, the innovation connects horse racing and William Hill (both of which have a somewhat stuffy reputation) with millennial consumer trends for the first time.

The betting industry has seen revolutionary change due to emerging technologies and William Hill has historically acted as a “fast follower” to maintain their market position. Get in the Race represents the first time the brand will act as an innovation leader, bringing a disruptive product (live virtual reality racing) to their category.

Users will be able to experience live horse races, in virtual reality, from the point of view of their chosen jockey. The VR engine is driven by live streaming GPS data and other data sources which dictate the live position of each horse and names and colours of horses and jockeys.

Each horse carries a small GPS tracker embedded in the saddle. We developed backend algorithms to smooth out the data flow from these trackers, and provide users with an accurate, live representation of each horse’s position.

The racetrack environment has a highly stylised, low-polygon look and feel. This requires minimal processing speeds and enables users to access Get in the Race from their own smartphones with a Google Cardboard headset as well as Oculus Rift installations in William Hill stores.

Get in the Race has been released as a minimum viable product (MVP) for consumer feedback. The next stage of development will be to add further race track locations and data to the product, including the horse’s stride length and heart beat. William Hill will fund further developments directly, with a view to releasing a phase 2 iteration of Get in the Race in Q1 2016.

Get In The Race is currently in a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage. This edition has been released to users on the app store and also through our Oculus Rift installation. Since the launch of the MVP we have had very positive feedback from the first round of user testing.

The main intention of launching the MVP is to collect user testing data to inform further development. The second phase of the product is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2016. This phase will incorporate higher resolution live GPS data from 3 UK racetracks.

Get In The Race is the first application of virtual reality technology in UK to the betting industry. Notably, it is also, as far as we are aware, the first product in the world to use to live positional data to drive a VR experience.

Rollout:

MVP release and gather user feedback April - July 2015

Phase 2 production July - Nov 2015:

- UX design

- Additional environment build

- Live data integration

Phase 2 alpha release Dec 2015

Phase 2 beta release Jan 2016