Worries about the spread of foot-and-mouth disease have led to all racing in Britain being cancelled until at least 7 March.

But bookmakers are aiming to counter the loss of British racing by screening meetings from Italy and South Africa and increasing the number of live greyhound races.

William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe told BBC Sport Online the company aims to maintain their turnover to around two-thirds to three-quarters of their normal business.

"Then, 90% of our business was horseracing and we did not have the capability to beam in racing from other parts of the world.

"Now, racing accounts for 70% of our betting turnover.

"We believe punters who need their fix of live daily racing will be happy with the meetings from South Africa and Italy.

"Newspapers are carrying the cards and the form of the horses."

Punters can also put a wager on a variety of speciality bets.

These include the Oscars, the General Election and who shot Phil Mitchell.

Sharpe added: "We had one man in north London who put a bet on on Tuesday that he would live to be 127. He put �1 on at odds of 10,000,000/1."

Minimised

Coral spokesman Simon Clare said: "Given the seriousness of the situation a suspension of horse racing is the responsible course of action and we are fully supportive of this decision.

"Clearly seven days without UK racing will have an impact on betting turnover levels.

"However, we have been in discussions with SIS who have already drawn up a contingency plan to provide a wide range of alternative betting opportunities for our customers to bet on.

"We are confident that the negative effect of this suspension on our business will be minimised."

Leading northern boards bookmaker Johnny Ridley, speaking at Catterick, has no doubt that a suspension of racing was the right thing to do.

He said: "It is frustrating, but in the grand scheme of things I think we should stop racing until it is sorted out.

"It would not be the end of the world for racing but there will be people who could be losing their life's work and we just have to take a philosophical view."

When asked how much it might cost his business he added: "Well I suppose it could save us money. You never know, there is no guarantee that we would be going to win!"