ITV7 competition shuts early as French harness race is mistakenly added

A technical problem with the popular ITV7 competition this weekend meant many potential players were unable to get in on the act as a harness race in France on Friday evening was mistakenly added to Saturday's game.

Run in conjunction with SkyBet as part of ITV's racing coverage, the ITV7 is a free-to-enter competition which offers players the chance to scoop a big jackpot if they can successfully select the winners of seven races chosen for the game. For Saturday's round the jackpot was set at £50,000.

However, due to a glitch, the 8.15pm (local time) harness race at Vincennes on Friday evening became the first race of the competition, meaning entries had to be submitted by 7.15pm on Friday evening to be eligible. Usually the first race takes place early on Saturday afternoon, so several possible entrants missed out.

A tweet from the ITV7 account acknowledged the error, reading: "Tomorrow's ITV7 round is open, unfortunately due to a technical error the first race and deadline for entering is 19.15 tonight."

However, the mistake led to a lot of disgruntled comments in response. There were no winners of Saturday's jackpot.

An ITV spokesperson said: "There was a glitch last night with ITV7 which meant that a Friday night race became the first of the bet. As so many people had already entered, we had to let the competition run. By next Saturday, the competition will be back to normal and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."

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