Horse Racing Betting Turnover in the UK: The Levy System Explained

Horse racing betting turnover in the UK is falling. It has been falling for three consecutive years, and the decline is not marginal. Yet in the same period, the statutory levy that funds the sport hit a record high. That contradiction — less money wagered, more money collected — is the central paradox of British racing’s financial model, and understanding it requires unpacking a system that dates to 1961 and has been patched, reformed, and debated ever since.

The Horserace Betting Levy Board’s annual report for 2024-25 confirmed levy receipts of £108.9 million — the highest since the levy was reformed in 2017. That figure sounds healthy. The turnover data does not.

How the Levy Works

The Horserace Betting Levy is a statutory charge on bookmakers operating in the UK who take bets on British horse racing. It was established by the Betting Levy Act 1961 and is currently set at a fixed rate of 10% of gross profits from horseracing bets. The money is collected by the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB), a non-departmental public body, and distributed to the sport for prize money, regulation, integrity, veterinary science, and racecourse improvements.

Before 2017, the levy was voluntary for offshore operators — a loophole that became untenable as online betting grew and an increasing share of wagers flowed through platforms based outside Britain. The Horserace Betting Regulations 2017 closed that gap by extending the levy to all operators offering bets on British racing, regardless of where they are domiciled. This reform was the primary reason levy yield increased from around £80 million per year before 2017 to the current level above £100 million.

The levy funds roughly a third of British racing’s prize money. In 2024, the HBLB contributed £61.4 million to prize money directly, with additional allocations to regulation and integrity (£19.4 million), staff training and retraining programmes (£7.9 million), and veterinary research (£2.3 million). These are not optional supplements — they are structural funding that the sport cannot operate without. Remove the levy, and the fixture list, prize money, and regulatory infrastructure would contract sharply.

The Turnover Decline

Betting turnover on British racing has been falling steadily since the post-pandemic recovery peaked in 2021-22. According to the HBLB’s annual report, turnover per race declined 8% year-on-year in 2024-25, 15% compared to 2022-23, and 19% relative to 2021-22. Those are not seasonal dips. They represent a structural contraction in the amount of money wagered on British racing.

The Gambling Commission’s industry statistics for April 2024 to March 2025 provide a broader context. Remote (online) betting on horse racing generated £766.7 million in gross gambling yield — the second-largest segment after football at £1.3 billion. Horse racing remains a major gambling product, but its share of overall betting spend is shrinking. Football’s dominance, the growth of in-play betting on team sports, and the shift towards casino products on mobile platforms are all drawing wagering away from horse racing.

The paradox of rising levy yield alongside declining turnover is explained by bookmaker profitability. The levy is charged on gross profits, not on turnover. Even as the total volume of bets declines, bookmakers have maintained or increased their margins — partly through tighter pricing, partly through reduced promotional spending, and partly through the structural advantage of affordability checks, which have disproportionately affected larger staking customers. Fewer bets are being placed, but the bets that remain are less well-priced for the punter, generating higher margins for the operator and therefore higher levy payments.

The decline is not uniform across the fixture list. The BHA’s quarterly data shows that average betting turnover per race at Premier fixtures — the top-tier meetings that attract the largest fields and the strongest horses — has held up better than at Core fixtures. Premier turnover per race was up 2.7% in 2025, while Core fixture turnover dropped 8.6%. The polarisation is significant: the biggest races are retaining bettors, while the everyday midweek and Saturday afternoon cards are losing them faster. This suggests that casual bettors are reducing their frequency rather than abandoning the sport entirely, concentrating whatever wagering they do on the headline events.

HBLB Interim Chair Anne Lambert’s report noted the turnover decline in blunt terms: down 8% year-on-year, 15% over two years, 19% over three. The trajectory, if it continues, threatens the levy’s sustainability regardless of current headline yield figures.

The Affordability Debate

The Gambling Commission’s introduction of financial vulnerability checks — a central recommendation of the 2023 Gambling White Paper — has become one of the most contentious issues in the relationship between racing and the betting industry. These checks require operators to assess whether customers can afford their level of gambling, with enhanced checks triggered at specified spending thresholds.

The racing industry’s concern is straightforward: intrusive financial checks discourage the high-staking, knowledgeable bettors who generate a disproportionate share of racing’s betting turnover. Gambling Commission data for 2024 showed that 4.31% of 15 million active betting accounts — 643,779 individual accounts — were subject to commercial staking restrictions. The Commission’s data and the racing industry’s perception of its impact do not entirely align. A Racing Post survey found that 31.8% of respondents reported being restricted on at least one account within the previous year, a figure far higher than the official 4.31%.

The gap between these numbers reflects different measurement approaches, but the underlying tension is real. The betting industry argues that affordability checks are necessary to prevent gambling harm. The racing industry argues that poorly calibrated checks drive customers to unregulated offshore operators who pay no levy, no tax, and no attention to safer gambling requirements. Both positions contain truth. The policy question — where to draw the line — remains unresolved, and its answer will shape racing’s finances for the next decade.

What It Means for the Sport

The levy is not a bonus. It is the foundation of British racing’s financial structure, and its long-term health depends on a betting market that is shrinking in volume even as it delivers record short-term receipts. The sport’s response — campaigning under the #AxeTheRacingTax banner against proposed tax harmonisation, investing in attendance growth through the national “The Going Is Good” campaign, and arguing for a more nuanced approach to affordability checks — reflects an industry that understands the problem even if it cannot yet solve it.

The levy yield trajectory since the 2017 reform tells its own story: £82 million in 2020-21 (pandemic-hit), £98 million in 2021-22, £100 million in 2022-23, £105.3 million in 2023-24, and £108.9 million in 2024-25. Each year’s increase has been welcomed, but each has also been accompanied by falling turnover — a combination that cannot persist indefinitely. At some point, bookmaker margins cannot expand further, and the levy will track turnover downward. Whether that inflection point is one year away or five is the question the industry most needs to answer and least wants to confront.

For anyone interested in UK horse racing beyond the next race card, the levy system and the turnover data behind it are essential context. Prize money, field sizes, the quality of the fixture list, and the number of horses in training all flow from the same financial source. When that source contracts, everything downstream contracts with it. The numbers are not abstract. They are the sport’s vital signs.