Direct transmission of digital TV via satellite from Danish trotting and racecourses is reported as being very successful. The organisation pioneering it, DanToto, reports a turnover increase of more than 25% since Racing Live, as the system is called, started a year ago. The satellite system, supplied by the Swedish firm Wahlberg & Selin AB, is now installed in several European countries.

Analogue terrestrial TV systems for trotting and racecourses have existed in Europe for some time. DanToto’s system, Racing Live, is claimed to be the first to use digital, mobile TV transmission via satellite.
With direct transmission, customers in betting shops can see everything that is happening on the course, and can place bets right up to minutes before the start.
‘The system has been very well received, by betting customers as well as agents’, said DanToto’s Project manager, Morten Hald. ‘It was partly at their request that we installed the system’.

Turnover increases 25%
‘Turnover has grown by more than 25%’, reported Hald. ‘But we’re also saving a lot of money with the satellite system for TV transmission to our agents. The annual operational costs are only USD 460,000 compared with more than USD 1.5 million for a terrestrial analogue system’.
DanToto, with an annual turnover of more than USD 46 million, uses the system four times a day, all the year round, except for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve when there is no racing.
Two mobile stations transmit daily from one of the new trotting and racecourses in various parts of Denmark. Of 175 Danish agents, more than 75 have acquired reception equipment, and by the end of the year the number is expected to have increased to over 100.

Huge interest
‘This is tomorrow’s technology’ claimed Charlotta Löfgren, of Wahlberg & Selin. ‘Racing Live has attracted huge interest at racecourses in Europe and other parts of the world. A similar system comes into operation in Finland in May, and there’s another installation in progress in Turkey’.
All arrangements and installation of the satellite are undertaken by the company. This includes a number of video cameras at the racecourse, vehicles with mobile satellite links, and dish receivers at the betting shops.
The actual bets, and information concerning them, are transmitted by terrestrial communication systems.

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For further information please contact:
Charlotta Löfgren
Wahlberg & Selin
PO Box 24005
S-104 50 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: +46 8 783 20 05
Fax: +46 8 783 20 03
e-mail:pwa@wase.se

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