INQ Grand National bet placed via a mobile handset

Thanks to 3, we actually managed to bet on this weekend's Grand National entirely by mobile surfing.

In the past, in order to place a bet via the mobile Internet, it's first been necessary to phone up and speak to somebody or, alternatively, find a PC in ordeer to set up an account so it's then possible to bet via a handset.

Not any longer. The INQ just so happens to have a 3 X series phone in the shape of a Nokia N73 on loan. Just a few hours before the race started, right there on 3's portal were instructions on how to place a bet.

First off, it's necessary to download a little app called Bet2Go. That was fairly easy although you still have to guess which folder the Nokia will place the new app in.

Fire up Bet2Go and it's then possible to create an account that takes money directly out of a debit account, for example. Probably deliberately it wasn't possible to stake more than £10 initially.

That was enough to place no fewer than three separate bets. Sadly none of the horses we picked came in the Top Four.

The only criticism we had came when trying to discover the results of other horse races which we taking place before the Grand National at Aintree. Using Yahoo! or Google to search for the results merely caused the handset to freeze for what seemed an eternity.

It appears that going off-portal onto the 'real' Internet in order to search with a 3G handset is still very much a hit and miss affair. Eventually, to find the race results we actually went onto a proper WAP site - Ananova.

What this whole exercise proved is that analysts are right. There is an absolutely desperate need for a decent mobile orientated search engine. One that takes you to 'mobile friendly' sites first and 'mobile enabled' sites last.

See Also
INQ fails to win Vodafone Derby
WAP man loses shirt on Monty's Pass