One of the more recent innovations to the services offered by the online bookmakers is that if you bet with any of the online bookmakers offering the Live Horse racing service you can watch the race you bet on live on your computer.

Watch Live Racing

There is nothing much to see just now at the betting website of raceo, merely a promise that the latest attempt to operate a Lottery-style tote pool Superbet on British racing is coming soon. It has been that way since March, when Race-O was launched by its chief executive, Rob Hartnett. But while it is running out of time to meet the initial estimates of a launch date "this summer", Hartnett remains impressively confident that his new Superbet will finally crack a problem that has frustrated some of the finest minds in betting for decades. By offering the betting public, both in Britain and around the world, the chance to win a fortune for a tiny outlay, he hopes to rewrite the rules of pool betting.

This has not, as yet, found favour with the Tote, which has a statutory monopoly on pool betting in Britain and has so far refused to be a partner in Race-O's plans. The Tote's hierarchy sees no reason to co-operate with a new product which intends to encroach on the territory of its own small-stake, big-win bet, the Scoop6. As a result, the website which will accept and process all stakes when Race-O launches will be based offshore.

Race-O, though, intends to press on regardless, and Hartnett insists that much of the tricky, technical work on the new Superbet's website is already complete.

The exact details of the Race-O bet, it seems, remain as hazy as the launch date, but there is no doubting the scope of the ambition behind the business, which has undertaken to return 20% of net profits to British racing.

The Tote, many feel, is now a pool-betting business in name only, and is far more interested in building its portfolio of off-course betting shops. Yet pool betting, particularly the "exotics" which can pay out several hundred times the stake, remains dominant in many global markets. These areas, along with those British punters with little or no interest in racing, are Race-O's prime target.

"Scoop6 does a good job at the moment, but it doesn't attract the person who isn't already pretty committed to racing," Hartnett says. We want to reach beyond people who are already pretty committed to racing, and the potential, particularly in the international market, is huge."

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