A punter has scooped a massive windfall on a ‘million to one’ bet placed on virtual horse racing . If finding winners from real horse races is difficult, it is even harder to pick the first-past-the-post from digital races, which has been compared to roulette as the odds are stacked heavily in the bookmakers’ favour. Virtual horse races, featuring computer-generated graphic images of horses and jockeys, are run just a few minutes apart, 24 hours a day, online and in betting shops all over the country. They are offered by all the major firms and staged at fictional tracks like Portman Park, Steepledowns and Sprint Valley. Betting is also available on virtual football matches, greyhounds, cricket , basketball, American football and cycling. According to Coral the odds suggest which horses, dogs and teams have the most chance of winning but the outcome is then decided by a random number generator. In virtual horse racing that should mean the horses at the shortest odds are most likely to win. Yet a Coral customer managed to land a £290,000 windfall by taking the opposite view. They picked four horses at double digit odds to combine in a 25p Lucky 15 bet, staking a total of £3.75. The final winning sum came to £290,571.25p. The extraordinary selections began when Hairy Eyeball prevailed at odds of 40-1 in the 9.31 at Sprint Valley. Their luck continued when Long Pin won the 9.34 at Portman Park at odds of 20-1. Just six minutes later, Good Train was successful in the 9.40 at Steepledowns at 22-1, while Silver Dart hit its target in the 9.46 at Sprint Valley at odds of 50-1. The quartet’s combined odds came to a staggering 1,009,952-1 “This is a Monday our digital customer will never forget! In a 15-minute spell, they have found four big price winners on virtual horse racing, scooping just over 290k for a £3.75 stake,” said Coral’s John Hill. “We have seen some impressive Lucky 15 winning bets over the years, but this tops the lot! All four virtual horses were 20-1 or bigger, with the final selection – Silver Dart – prevailing at odds of 50-1. “The combined odds of these four selections were just over a million to one, with Silver Dart hitting its target in the final race to complete a day in a million for our customer.”