How to Run a Race Night
A race night without the projector hire, the DVD, or the clipboard. One tap and the field is on the card.
A race night without the projector hire, the DVD, or the clipboard. One tap and the field is on the card.
From the launcher, tap Racing. Quick Play drops you straight into a ready race: animated runners with daft names, one race, play for fun. That is the whole setup.
Want something else? Tap Customise for the race style, the number of races, the length of the race, and the charity options. It is all one tap deeper, not a form.
Under Customise you choose the source: Animated (horses, pigs, sheep, camels, ducks, tortoises, elephants, or goats, and they genuinely race, with overtakes and photo finishes) or real race videos curated in your Racing Library.
Animated is the default because it always works, it is never the same twice, and nobody has seen it before. You can set exactly how many seconds each animated race runs (5 to 120), and change it between races - short sprints early, a long nail-biter for the last.
For video races there is an Audio button on the host preview: play the commentary through the audience screen (the default), your own device, both, or no audio at all if you are running your own music.
The runners and the QR code go up on the audience screen. Players scan it and get the race card in their hand: the runners, the silks, and the odds.
Phones are a read-only race card. Nobody places a bet through the app. Players tap a runner to back it for fun, and the big screen becomes a live favourites market: the most-backed runners rise to the top with a FAVOURITE ribbon, backer counts, and racecourse-style odds (3/1, EVS) that move as the room picks. No money moves anywhere near the app.
Tap SHOW PLAYERS on the host to put everyone who has joined - with their photos - on the big screen. Tap again to hide them.
Tap OPEN BETTING. Now you do what a race night has always done: someone goes round the tables with a float and a bag.
Playing for fun (the default, and the right one for a corporate event): no money at all, just bragging rights.
Charity event: type a good cause into Race Setup and the money tools switch on. Tap ENTER TABLE BETS while the money is still coming in and type what has been staked on each runner. The charity take starts at 0% - you opt into a cut - and the pool splits into 1st / 2nd / 3rd place pots (60/25/15 out of the box, yours to change). The app turns it all into proper odds on the screen. You can edit it right up to the off.
When the tables are done, tap CLOSE BETTING. The big screen stamps BETTING CLOSED across the card and the phones lock their picks.
Tap START RACE. They race, they overtake each other, and it is a photo finish more often than you would think. The winner is settled on the screen and the room finds out at the same moment.
The big screen shows a full results board - 1st, 2nd and 3rd on podium steps with their winning odds - and on a charity event the Host shows a payout card: what each place pays per pound staked, how many players were backing each runner and the even split per winner, and how much went to the cause. A place nobody backed rolls its pot to the cause. The race finances record themselves - no forms.
Tap NEXT RACE and go again. Six races and an auction race at the end is a proper race night.