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1. You won't get as good and clear view from the stands, and the betting is going on throughout the race, not just at the end where you might have a clear-ish view. You could sit in the stands and point your phone at the big screen TVs showing the race to the crowd, but that stream is delayed somewhat anyway, losing you some advantage.

2. He might be selling the footage, but doesn't want to admit to doing so (since that would be more likely to get him into trouble)

They sell the video streams. The drone guys are not finding gold, they are selling picks and shovels. These courses are on Sky Attheraces in the UK - 15 second delay to overcome. RacingTV is less than 2 seconds but the angle can be head-on only at some courses.

A drone with an analog video broadcast will have lower latency than a packet switched cell phone