Melbourne Cup betting revival points to blue skies for racing turnover

Bookmakers and principal racing authorities (PRAs) will be hopeful a revival in Melbourne Cup betting is a strong pointer that the near three-year decline in racing turnover is at an end.

Wagering companies spoken to by The Straight indicate a significant uptick in wagering on Tuesday’s Cup, with one reporting a jump of 14.5 per cent in turnover on the race itself and a 5 per cent increase across the entire raceday.

If that was mirrored across the remaining wagering service providers, it would see a substantial rebound from last year, when overall turnover on the race was $214 million.

The record amount of turnover on the Cup, according to Racing Victoria (RV), was in 2022, when it reached $226 million.

For context, the Melbourne Cup has traditionally generated more than four times the turnover of any other Australian race.

Sportsbet recorded its biggest Melbourne Cup turnover in company history, setting new benchmarks across customer activity, and wagering.

Peak betting reached 69,293 bets per minute, a record for the operator and comparable to peak volumes seen by FanDuel during the minutes leading up to the Super Bowl.

The company also reported a record number of new customer sign-ups, with overall participation hitting 1.3 million bettors on the day. New active customers rose 13.8 per cent year-on-year.

From a trading perspective, Half Yours’ victory delivered a favourable result for the bookmaker, reversing the outcome of last year’s race, won by Knights Choice.

Betfair reported it held $10.8 million in trades on the Melbourne Cup, with $8.4 million in win-market traded volume. That is up from a reported $6 million last year.   

The exchange traded $2.9 million on The Everest, while it traded $2.8 million on Saturday’s Victoria Derby and $1.4 million on Saturday’s Golden Eagle. It should be noted that Betfair does charge a higher commission/ market base rate (10 per cent as compared to 8 per cent) on NSW racing.

Parimutuel betting may be light compared to former days, but $21.7 million was spent on the win pool across all three totes, in what may be the final year with three individual dividends for the race.

The trifecta pool was $27.7 million, the largest of any bet type, while the overall investment on the Cup via the tote across all bet types was in excess of $89 million. Year-on-year comparisons were not made available by Tabcorp.

Betting interest in the race in New Zealand was strong, with Entain, which now holds a virtual monopoly on the race, reporting turnover of $13.6 million, higher than the record $13.4 million set in 2023.

This data needs to be viewed in the context that, given Entain now has a legislatively enshrined monopoly over NZ punters, who now have no access to Australian bookmakers as before, one would expect their numbers to increase.

If that jump in turnover is mirrored across the rest of the carnival, it would arrest a slide in recent years. RV reported that turnover on the 2024 spring carnival up to this point was 8.3 per cent down on 2023.

Betting across the four days at Flemington did better than other aspects, with a 1 per cent reduction in 2024. However, turnover dropped by 15 per cent in 2023 compared to the record in 2022.

RV has attributed the overall slide to macro-economic factors such as cost of living, plus the reduction in the amount of generosities offered by bookmakers.

Anecdotally, the turnover decline has flattened out in recent months. All bookies spoken to by The Straight said that Cup turnover had grown compared to 2024, with RV expected to release its detailed turnover figures in the coming weeks.

While turnover is likely to be up, bookmakers’ coffers took a major hit on Derby day, when a slew of favourites saluted, resulting in punters dominating. Sources spoken to by The Straight described it as one of the toughest-ever days for corporate bookmakers.

That came after a series of adverse sporting results, especially in rugby league, which cost bookmakers an estimated $50 million during the final series.

Meanwhile, the Nine Network reported a surge in viewers for the 2025 Melbourne Cup, with total TV audience of 2.079 million for the race, marking an 8.8 per cent increase.

TV audiences have seen a revival across the first two years on the Nine deal, after the previous contractl with Ten saw numbers slump to 1.024 million in 2022. They were the worst figures since the Melbourne Cup carnival was first broadcast on a commercial free-to-air network in 1978. 

Melbourne Cup day itself drew just over 84,000 fans to Flemington. That was down from last year (91,168), but similar to 2023, and was impacted by expected wet weather on the day.