The practice of flying drones to live-stream UK horse races – and thereby giving viewers betting on the outcomes an advantage – has come to a head again, with pilots battling parimutuel, track, and legal officials seeking to shut the profitable activity down.
The deployment of drones to live-stream horse races around the UK has become a recurrent flashpoint over the last few years, as participants involved have become more numerous, audacious, and at times aggressive. There seem to be two general approaches to what apparently is a relatively lucrative activity. Pilots may feed live video directly to gambling clients who use online apps to place bets as the final results of ongoing races becomes clear. Or, drone operators may take advantage of the real-time footage themselves to lay wagers with far higher odds of paying out.
In both scenarios, the objective is the same: obtain an advantage over people at the track betting before races begin, or doing so…
