Dating back centuries, horse racing has always had a massive appeal for Britons who fancy a flutter. Initially that was for racegoers placing bets at the track, then High Street bookmakers came on the scene. Now things have shifted more into the modern realm of online betting.
The Sport of Kings remains strong today, and a lot of the funding for it comes from betting revenue. Big events like Royal Ascot, the Cheltenham Festival, the Derby and the Grand National, still retain the power to draw in even the most casual of punters who get swept up in the hype.
But with online betting markets giving the utmost convenience for placing wagers on a huge number of sports, is horse racing still the king when it comes to betting? Is it the most bet-on sport in the UK?
UK Betting Industry
The betting industry in the UK is huge and while the most popular activity is the National Lottery, sports and casino products are massively popular too.
A study by the Gambling Commission in 2024, found that around 48% of UK adults had participated in a gambling activity, with 20% of all respondents stating that their only form of gambling was lottery games.
In terms of turnover, online casino games dominate, pulling in more than £810 million Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) per year. From products like blackjack, instant wins and bingo, the variety of play at online casinos casts a wide net of appeal.
While remaining a hugely social game, remote bingo earned more than £160 million GGY during the year. Leading online casino research and review site AskGamblers UK is a great resource for discovering safe remote bingo platforms. Rating only licensed and regulated sites, users can explore operators that provide a range of bingo rooms from traditional to fast play.
What The Numbers Say
The Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) is a big indicator for online gambling sites of how well games are performing. GGY is the amount of money that gambling operators hold on to after paying out winnings, but before the operating costs of the business are taken out.
From remote betting alone in the UK, football was the leading sport in 2024 with a GGY of £1.1 billion. Horse racing trailed quite a way behind at a GGY of £771.1 million.
Still, horse and football betting combined weren’t as valuable to the industry as the online casino games sector. Alone, out of the industry-wide £4.4 billion GGY in 2024 that casinos generated, two-thirds came from casino slots.
Online Gambling
In 2023 a UK study found that more than two-fifths (around 49% of people surveyed) of online gamblers spent more than £5 a month on sports bets.
That is a marked lead over any other category, with slots participation of more than £5 staked at around 25%, bingo at 18% and other casino games like roulette and blackjack at the lower end of things with 17%.
But for an industry that is worth such a huge amount of money, it is the many components that come together to make it. But where does the bulk of that money placed on sports bets go?
Football Wins Out
Football is the most bet-on sport that there is in the UK, which is no great surprise given the fervent passion there is for it. The two leading markets for football betting are the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League which continue to attract the most bets.
Football leads racing by a fair distance as well, with 45% of all active bettors reported to have placed bets on it. In comparison, around 37% of people had gambled on horse racing over the previous twelve months.
There is, however, little to differentiate between football and horse racing when it comes to the amounts wagered on them. Only 7% of football bettors and 8% of horse racing bettors spent over £100 a month.
Interestingly, however, bettors were seen to spend higher amounts (but less frequently) on other sports. For example, 18% of punters stated that they bet over £200 a month on cricket, 16% of respondents said they did on tennis and 14% on rugby union.
Other Sports
Football and horse racing remain dominant in the UK betting industry, but there is great variety elsewhere too, something that has increased massively thanks to online betting sites.
According to the Gambling Commission, 175 active online operators are licensed to accept bets in the UK. That’s a staggering volume of platforms covering nearly just about every sport under the sun.
Behind the big two of horse racing and football, other popular areas of sports betting can be seen from how many people bet on them in 2024.
Around 9% of people surveyed had bet on golf, slightly ahead of the 8% that reported betting on boxing. Tennis was equally popular as boxing, which in turn was slightly ahead of the number of players that actively bet on Rugby Union.
Even with the likes of the Six Nations and the last World Cup, the annual volume of bets taken on rugby typically hovers around 6% of user participation.
The Balance
Everything tends to balance out. Long gone are the days when the sole focus of betting in the UK was on horse racing and football.
The main differences are in the average betting amounts, because people who bet less frequently on things like golf and boxing, tend to go bigger, likely because of less volume in events.
That stands to reason because a punter has to balance a monthly budget. With horse racing running every day of the year and bookmakers posting domestic and international racecards, bets will naturally need to be smaller.
The same is true for football markets, which are heavily promoted by bookies because they are a great money earner for them. They run 24/7 with modern-day busy fixtures from around the world listed. Again, as there are more things to bet on, punters typically have to dial back their stakes.
In Conclusion
Online betting and the increase in the availability of sports to bet on, will have taken something away from horse racing and football, but not enough to dent their overall popularity. While betting on the horses remains a staple of the British bettor, it doesn’t come close to toppling the popularity of placing wagers on football.
