Gambling on Horse Racing Continues to be Popular in the US

2024 has been another memorable year for followers of horse racing. The top American races have seen some thrilling finishes and some new superstar horses making their mark. As the year winds down, there’s still races to bet on and American gamblers regularly pay visits to sports betting sites to do so.

For many the highlight of the US horse racing year was the Kentucky Derby. Everyone loves a close finish but it’s rare to see a three-horse photo finish. It’s even more thrilling if it just happens to occur in a Triple Crown event.  It was Mystik Dan who just edged out Sierra Leone (later to win the Distaff at the Breeders’ Cup) and Forever Young.

Betting on horse racing has always been popular in the US. Now that online sports betting has arrived, huge amounts of money are being wagered. That helps the gambling companies of course and also the US states that have made sports betting legal. The billions of dollars being received in gambling taxes are boosting state coffers.

The Breeders’ Cup was as exciting as ever with racehorses from all around the globe competing for outrageous sums of money. It wasn’t a great meeting for Japan with none of their horses winning. Epsom Derby winner City of Troy was also a massive disappointment. The form shown on grass simply wasn’t transferred to the dirt track the three-year-old had to run on in the US.

The Breeders’ Cup saw some memorable performances by both horses and trainers. For example, Bob Baffert trained the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for the sixth time in his career when Citizen Bull won the race.

Rebel’s Romance won the Breeders’ Cup Turf and that made the Charlie Appelby trained runner the winner of that race for the second time. He’s only the third horse to have achieved that feat as he continues to win races all over the globe.

Aidan O’Brien continues to have tremendous success in Europe. City of Troy may have disappointed for him in this year’s Breeders’ Cup but the Irish trainer didn’t go home empty handed as is often the case. Lake Victoria was an impressive winner of the Juvenile Fillies Turf and the Frankel filly is one to look out for over longer distances in the future.

2018 saw a US Supreme Court Judge make a ruling that allowed individual states to have the final say on legalization. October 2021 saw the state of Connecticut made sports betting legal and it has had great success.

The changing of the rules has been significant in terms of the amounts that are bet legally on the sport. Prior to the ruling, the legal handle for 2018 was $11.26 billion but it was estimated that between $100 and $150 billion worth of wagers were being made illegally on the black market.

September of this year saw Connecticut record a record handle of $214.4 million, a rise of 18.4% from the same time in 2023. Over $1.5 billion has been wagered this year in that state and betting on horse racing makes a strong contribution to that figure.

It’s not just betting on US horse races that is now possible. Gamblers can place bets on the races being held in the UK, Hong Kong, Australia, France and many other countries around the globe.

The American horse racing industry contributes greatly towards the economy. This is particularly so in states such as Kentucky, California, New York and Maryland. Pari-mutuel betting is legal in over 30 US states.

It’s estimated that the overall horse industry contributes $122 billion a year to the US economy. A large chunk of that figure comes from horse racing. States such as Kentucky owe a great deal to the sport. Massive amounts are wagered when the Kentucky Derby is held and the sport employs thousands of people in the USA.

There are massive prizes to be won in US horse racing. Total purses last year reached over $1.3 billion. On average, each racing day saw runners battling it out to win around $337,000 and over $11.6 billion was bet on races in 2023, according to horse.bet, an online guide to horse betting sites.

It’s estimated that around 35% of those who bet on sport enjoy a flutter on horse racing. That puts the sport behind only the NFL, NBA, NHL and boxing in the list of sports gamblers love to bet on. The fact that horse racing takes place throughout the year is important to sports betting sites, especially with them also offering odds on overseas racing.

Horse racing is expected to continue to be a popular sport to place bets on. It has so many years of tradition and as sports betting continues to grow in popularity, trying to get a winner on the horses will remain enjoyable and hopefully profitable.