By Bill Finley
In what is becoming a familiar trend for the sport of horse racing in North America, betting in 2024 declined by 3.35%.
According to figures released Friday by Equibase, $11,265,210,514 was the all-sources yearly handle for 2024 for U.S. racing, down from 2023's total of $11,655,726,020.
Handle was last up in 2021, but that was an outlier because those numbers were going up against 2020 figures when the pandemic shut down much of the sport. Prior to that, the last handle increase was in 2018.
The more alarming trend is how far handle has fallen since it peaked in 2003 when $15.18 billion was wagered. When adjusted for inflation, since 2003 handle has fallen by 57.3%, and there doesn't appear to be anything on the horizon that will reverse the trend. It's also worth noting that the betting handle figures have fallen significantly since the early 2000's even though Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) players are now pumping about $4 billion a year into the handle and were not a factor 15-20 years ago.
The handle picture might have looked brighter if not for a poor fourth quarter during which handle fell by 14.44%.
The number of races run in the U.S. fell by 2.82%, from 31,746 to 30,852, which could account for some of the decline in handle in 2024.
A total of $1,252,385,694 in purses was paid out in 2023, a 0.23% increase from the prior year. The larger picture is that purses are no longer growing the way they did in 2021 and 2022 when revenues from Historical Horse Racing Machines and other forms of gaming were pumping millions into the purse accounts. Purses increased by 35% in 2021 and by 11% in 2022. In 2023 they were down 0.3%.
The average field size held steady, showing a 0.19% increase over 2023. The average field size in 2024 was 7.45 starters per race.
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