A digital guru believes he has come up with the answer to silence animal rights activists protesting against gruelling horse races like the showpiece Melbourne Cup and Magic Millions.

Launched in Australia in an early form under a different name almost a decade ago, Photo Finish Live is the brainchild of the genius behind one of history’s biggest video games. 

Ian Cummings started as a game tester on Electronic Arts’ Madden NFL before eventually taking control as creative director of the entire franchise. 

But in a move dismissed as ‘madness’ by industry insiders, he quit his high-flying role with EA to focus on his ground-breaking horse racing simulation. 

Now players have won more than US$40 million in real money prizes – both in cryptocurrency and hard cash – from playing the game.

And it’s being touted as the future of real-life horse racing with an incredibly detailed simulation of every aspect of the sport of kings. 

With near photo-realistic digital horse races running around the clock, players can own, race, breed, and trade their virtual horses 24/7 across the globe. Two horses have already sold for US$50,000 – a platform record. 

Mr Cummings insists he doesn’t want to replace horse racing, but he admits his sim could be an ethical and moral alternative to the real-life sport which has been increasingly plagued by protests about animal cruelty.

In December, the New Zealand government announced it would end greyhound racing to protect the welfare of the racing dogs. 

That industry had been on notice over animal welfare concerns for several years, with three reviews over the past decade all recommending significant changes. 

In the US, the sport has been all but eradicated across the country. 

PFL is already well ingrained with the US horse racing community, with a digital version of the Kentucky Derby broadcast on national television before the big race at Churchill Downs. 

‘We really support (horse racing), with our partner at Churchill Downs, but I’m no dummy,’ the Florida-born developer said.

‘I realise that a lot of people are uncomfortable with the animals. We’ve tried to do obviously everything we can (to support the welfare of animals). 

‘We’ve donated to [racehorse charity] AfterCare … but there are a lot of things on the sport that a lot of people find difficult to stomach.

‘The benefit with our game is that there’s no worry whatsoever … I can see California banning it any day. 

‘They’re becoming very animal rights-focused and that would be a huge blow because California is one of the biggest states and generates probably hundreds of millions of dollars for the economy, but you never know.’

Mr Cummings believes the digital version can co-exist with the real-life sport. 

‘At some level, a long time ago, I thought I’m going to come in here guns blazing and replace the sport with digital, but I don’t really believe that to be the case,’ he said. 

‘I think there is so much tradition and joy that comes from the sport, but augmenting it and maybe appealing to a generation that is uncomfortable with it – but still likes the thrill of racing and gambling – that’s maybe more where we can find our self.’

Animal activists stage a protest during Caulfield Cup day at Caulfield Race Course in Melbourne back in 2019

Protesters target racegoers at the Caulfield Cup in Melbourne, Australia 

The digital version also benefits from the purity of a fully digital algorithm that eliminates any form of corruption. 

‘That’s been a lot of the complaint from the industry,’ Mr Cummings said. 

‘I think a lot of the industry wants more unified regulation in the US and when you look at a league like the NFL or NBA, if there starts to become an image problem they can all kind of work together and change it and that’s the problem with horse racing here. 

‘There is no governing body … and so something can be going that is really staining the sport in a certain state that another state can’t do anything about and now they’re dragged into it.

‘There is just too much money tied up for anyone to give control (away).’

Mr Cummings said PFL allows people to buy into the digital world of horse racing without having to be a millionaire to do it. 

‘It’s hopefully almost all of the thrill, running for real money, having that for a moment where you’re able to watch your horse finish first without any of the concern for the animal, without any of the concern of any sort of dodginess that maybe could exist based on you having to ship your horse to some state that you really didn’t know the standards,’ he said. 

‘There is only one governing body in Photo Finish and that’s really us, along with the community – none of that weird race fixing or anything like that.’

While he says he’s a keen gambler at heart, Mr Cummings said he had only seen one real horse race in his life when he went all-in on the biggest punt of his life. 

‘I worked on Madden and was working on football games for the better part of 10 years,’ he said.

‘When I started looking at my own business and building my own game, I went to a couple of websites and (researched) the most popular sports in the world,’ he said. 

Ian Cummings during his younger days as an executive with EA Sportts where he helped developed the iconic Madden NFL video game 

Players are able to start a stable of digital horses and begin breeding them. Some breeders have already made tens of thousands of real dollars trading digital horses 

Ian Cummings announces in September PFL has become the world’s first real-money horse racing game approved by Apple

With the market already flooded with football, soccer and basketball games, Mr Cummings saw a gap in the market for horse-racing.

‘I thought “I don’t think there’s anything really good out there right now”,’ he said.

‘I searched my console, I searched my phone and there’s about 10 horse racing games and all of them were dreadful and not very good.

‘So I really just dived into that. It was kind of like business first, audience first … I thought maybe this is underdeveloped so I dived into all the stats and tried to do as much research as I could on the sport.’

That included getting acquainted with a real-life track where he was immersed in the real-life world of horse breeding. 

‘The first game I had was very arcadey – not realistic at all – and it was just an idea. I didn’t know if it would get traction at all,’ Mr Cummings said. 

Those first versions of the game saw the former multinational corporate executive laughed at by those still in the video games industry. 

‘I showed all my game developer friends, people I worked with forever, we worked at EA Sports, I’m showing executives and … they all just laughed at me,’ Mr Cummings admitted. 

‘They said: “Horse racing. Are you kidding me? Who gives a s*** about horse racing?” 

‘But hundreds of millions of people do. The Kentucky Derby is a huge deal and I think just everyone here in the US thought that’s not much of a big deal. 

‘I thought I was going to dig in and try.’

The real life Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs during the 150th running of the horse race

The Kentucky Derby includes all the glitz and glamour of Australia’s Melbourne Cup 

Photo Finish Live has partnered with the Kentucky Derby and runs a digital version of the event 

The decision proved right, with the game quickly picking up tens of thousands of users across the globe. 

Since its launch, players have spent more than $40 million in entry fees in virtual races and another $8 million-plus breeding virtual racehorses. 

In Australia, where an early version named ‘Derby King’ launched, PFL gained immediate traction. 

‘I got immediate engagement from the community, immediate retention and expansion, and I thought, “This is going to work”,’ he said.

‘It’s been eight or nine years now of me learning the rest of the sport and adding in all of the crazy amount of stuff that we’ve been doing for all of these years.’

This includes creating a complex genetics structure and long-term bloodlines that make the breeding process authentic. 

PFL plans to make major inroads into pubs and bars across the planet, similar to Aussie punting giant TAB’s Trackside digital races that already run in Australian pubs. 

‘One of my next big goals is to topple TAB and bring that to the US,’ he said. ‘There is no such product in the US and it’s decently popular in the UK and Australia.

‘This game now has the constant stream of racing from the real players and it’s a super interesting product to bet on because all of the horses in the game have all been bred by the players. 

Photo Finish Live looks and plays like the real thing, without the death of any horses or jockeys 

TAB’s Trackside digital racing game can be played at many pubs across Australia

‘You’re now like 20 years in and multiple generations in this virtual world. 

‘When you look at TAB or any other kind of virtual betting product, it’s typically just a slot machine. 

‘”Here are some odds, we’ll just fake ’em and you can just pick what one you want”. That can be fun, but this one is a lot more skilled, which I think more people enjoy.’

Unlike Trackside, punters can study a horse’s actual form. 

He added: ‘It’s actually “I’m going to pick the 6 horse because his parents were really good in the mud and they won similar races last time and that one’s grand sire has been doing this”. 

‘All that stuff is in the game, so it’s all about introducing that to spectators – a real casual bar experience for a start. 

‘It’s going to be an uphill battle, but I think there is an appetite for that virtual, passive betting product that runs all day, 24/7.

‘And I know our product is much better than the normal ones.’

Digital stable owner ‘The Commish’, who runs Solanaut Stables, told Daily Mail Australia his stable was making major real world profits.

‘It’s been almost two years since the game/industry/economy went live and we’ve amassed north of US$1million in profit,’ he said.

‘Mainly driven from receiving breeding fees for our excellent studs. During high growth periods, its lucrative to own studs that the players want to use to make racehorses.’

The Commish said he got involved because the game ‘felt like a better version of the analog horse racing industry’.

‘The people who play this game love this game and so it’s just a matter of time before this game goes mainstream and we have a hundred thousand stables competing for huge prizes every single hour of every single day,’ he said. 

‘That’s why I play, to experience the S curve growth and watch this digital economy blossom.’

Track staff erect a screen after The CliffsofMoher was injured during race 7 of the Lexus Melbourne Cup in 2018

Jockey Joao Moriera (back left in blue silks) is taken from the track after he fell on racehorse Regal Monarch in race 4 during the 2017 Melbourne Cup Day

The digital stable owner predicted horse racing moguls would be made in the digital sphere in the years to come. 

‘And I want that to be a part of my legacy. It’s the first real game with actual asset ownership unlike the traditional games of yesterday,’ he said. 

‘A real revolution in gaming, where the top players will compete for big bucks and hordes of players will play for fun or a small chance at glory. This is how businesses are created and stables become legends.’

In Australia, where the government has forced players to use VPNs to hide their location, PFL faces a nightmare of regulatory hurdles to overcome before it’s accepted into the mainstream. 

‘We had to geoblock Australia out of the game due to recent regulatory scares. Nothing came to us, but we were seeing the environment there,’ Mr Cummings said. 

The company hopes to cut its way through the red tape down under and bring to it again what the world now enjoys. 

‘My hope in the coming years, especially in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan – those are the three locals I’ve got that were really starting to push hard into us – is to get some more boots on the ground and get regulatory approval on very specifically certain parts of the game,’ Mr Cumming said. 

‘Just give us regulatory direction. That’s all I want. I don’t care. One way or the other we’ll figure it out. Right now you can just get a letter and you can get sued and you don’t even know why. So that’s the scary part when you don’t even know what rules to follow and then you still get sued.’

The use of cryptocurrency in the game has not helped its standing with Australian regulators. 

Ian Cummings was EA Sports’ creative director on Madden NFL 10, 11 and 12

Madden NFL 11 was a hit across all platforms of its day 

Ian Cummings quit his high paying executive job at EA Sports to run his own company 

While players are able to use traditional money to buy in-game currency, called Derby, many use the digital currency made specifically for the game, known as Crown. 

‘We tried to keep the game a little insulated from crypto,’ he said. ‘We are heavily supported by the creation of this asset Crown. 

‘The point of Crown is to emulate this economy, have new people come in and we’ve created this token that people share in building of the game, but the game itself actually operates kind of in US dollars.

‘It’s a fake currency similar to like a Fortnite (V-Bucks). We call it Derby, but if you play any free-to-play game there’s always this soft currency. 

‘Fortnite V-Bucks or Robux or whatever. That’s how the game works and the reason we did it was to protect it from the madness that is crypto.’

Unlike some vague scam-like cryptocurrencies, Crown’s value is clearly linked to the success of the game. 

‘It does have teeth. It’s not a meme,’ Mr Cummings said of Crown. 

‘Crown is basically more valuable the more people play Photo Finish. It’s kind of straight like that.’

With horse racing a beloved institution with people across the world, Mr Cummings holds hope the real thing will never truly die. 

He added: ‘It’s been around for 150 years, it’s so part of the traditions and cultures, it just feels wild that they would ever get rid of it.’