BT’s struggling Pay-TV service, BT Vision, is in the process of brokering a deal with betting firm Ladbrokes, which will enable subscribers to be able to bet during actual sporting events.

BT aim to give BT Vision a spark of life as since it’s launch in December 2006, only 5,000 subscribers have been obtained, of which is believed that 40% of this total is BT employees.

However with a new marketing campaign and with a Ladbrokes deal in place, BT aim to have 200,000 subscribers by the end of the year and have 3m by 2010. The IPTV service provides a library of films and TV programmes through a home user’s broadband connection.

The service also includes access to the digital television service freeview. BT have also brokered some deals with Warner Brothers and HBO, thus giving BT Vision the access to many films and programmes such as Batman, Superman and the Sopranos etc.

Through the deal that these companies are proposing, customers will be able to make bets through their TV on horseracing, football matches and more by using their TV remote control.

That said, BT are not the pioneers of this service as Sky already do a similar service called SkyBet, but this will help BT get closer to the big players in the Pay-TV market.

It will be a tough battle for BT who have a long way to go before catching up with BSkyB and Virgin Media in the TV sector with 8.4m and 3.3m customers respectively on various broadband, phone and TV packages.

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