New features for the customers of online bookmaker William Hill

William Hill’ project ‘Get in the Race’ recreates live horse race’s atmosphere, as it is happening in virtual reality.

The British bookmaker, William Hill Company is studying the possibility of sharing a new mobile betting application of the company with a device for smartphones Google Cardboard virtual reality (VR). For the development of the project ‘Get in the Race’, the company William Hill invited the production studio Unit9. The essence of the project is to enable the users to track the application and see the race through the eyes of a jockey riding a horse with a review by 360 °, through a combination of GPS coordinates of the racecourse and the VR technology from Google. In addition, the process of placing bets will be implemented by the technology of heads-up display, which responds to the movement of the user’s eyes.

The corporate development and innovation director at William Hill, Crispin Nieboer, said to The Drum that they are constantly trying to add more opportunities to online betting.

The studio Unit9 received historical data of the races in Kempton Park and proceeded to recreate the race on the engine 3D VR. Google Cardboard VR, the value of which in the UK is £ 8, has been chosen as a more optimal device for the prototype of a new betting product and its competitor, the brand of Facebook, Oculus Rift, was considered too expensive. Therefore, the Hill decided to refuse using it, as it hopes that the product will be released to the mass market eventually.

Nevertheless, William Hill plans to offer more sophisticated settings of its application in future, involving the use of traditional VR headset. There are even bold plans to develop special devices that will recreate the sensation of a rider to the user on the selected horses.

The creative director of Unit9, Henry Crowley, thinks that their application “has the potential to be a full blown product”.

The company William Hill unveiled a prototype of its new application at Digital Shoreditch festival, which began on Monday and will run until May 24.

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