The service will work by providing users with a recorded message, which will entail racing event details and odds. The type of information they can hear will be the time, race, race card number and even names of the horse, jockey, and trainer.
The phoneline will also have a dedicated team on hand to further aid users. Should they prefer, customers can also speak directly to a Star Sports trader if they want to find out more information and place a bet of their choice.
Andrew Gemmel, owner of former Stayers’ Hurdle winner, has been blind since birth. He spoke about how helpful this will be to visually impaired racing fans, saying: “This is a wonderfully innovative idea from Star Sports.”
While Eddie Lanham, visually impaired Star Sports customer, said: “Sadly, my friend who used to read the race cards to me recently died of Covid-19. Star involved me in the trials of this service, and I’ve found it to be a great help and will be invaluable moving forward.”
Head of PR at Star Sports, Luke Tarr, said: “We’re excited to be able to launch the Talking Racecards phoneline to support customers who need help in being read the latest races and odds in order to place a bet."
Each race card will be open to Star Sport users from 9am every day an event takes place.
