BALTIMORE — Sportsbooks are on a heater.
The rise of online gambling over the past six years has resulted in a lucrative market for sports betting operators with annual revenue in the 11-figure range. Americans placed a total of $119.8 billion on legal sports bets in 2023, a 27.5% increase over 2022, with $10.9 billion in revenue for sportsbooks, according to the American Gaming Association’s commercial gaming revenue tracker. A key market — and one that is only just starting to reach its full potential — is horse races.
Betting on horse racing is nothing new. In fact, it’s one of the oldest forms of sports betting with its roots tracing back to 18th century England. But never has placing a wager on races such as the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes been more accessible. Churchill Downs reported a record $320.5 million in total wagers on this year’s races, up over 11% from the previous record set last year. A spokesperson for FanDuel sportsbook, which broadcast the Derby on its platform FanDuel TV, shared that over 700,000 people placed a wager on the races through the app, including over 200,000 first-time horse bettors.
“Having horse racing in the same account wallet is very powerful in introducing those customers to horse racing and we saw that with the Derby last week with those huge numbers,” FanDuel’s general manager of racing Andrew Moore said in a phone interview.
“A lot of that is customers who just never bet on the sport before and they’re trying it out. They’re interested and it’s a very frictionless experience for them to do with FanDuel if they already have a sports betting account because it’s there for them, whereas if they were with another sportsbook, they’d have to set up a new account and either with the same brand or a different brand elsewhere. There’s obviously a lot of pain to that if you’re not fully invested.”
The potential for more records to be broken will extend to Pimlico this weekend, when Derby winner Mystik Dan is set to continue his quest for the second leg of the Triple Crown. The inclusion of the Derby winner in the Preakness is a significant boost for sportsbooks; television ratings and betting participation have both suffered in recent years with three of the past six Derby winners skipping the Run for the Black-Eyed Susans.
That won’t be the case in 2024 with Mystik Dan getting the go-ahead from his trainer Kenny McPeek on Saturday after the 3-year-old’s post-race recovery went well. Mystik Dan was set to face some stiff competition he didn’t see in Kentucky with betting favorite Muth in the post position next to him, but the Bob Baffert-trained horse was pulled from the race Wednesday after the horse spiked a fever upon his arrival Tuesday. Muth missing the race is expected to make Mystik Dan (5-2) the morning-line favorite.
As for the rest of the field, Catching Freedom (fourth-place finisher), who was fewer than 2 lengths behind Mystik Dan at Churchill Downs, and Just Steel (17th place) are the only other two Derby holdovers to enter the Preakness. The Hall of Famer Baffert will still have a horse in the race with Imagination, originally tied with Catching Freedom for the third-best odds at 6-1. Lots of eyes — 2,570 to be exact — will be following Seize the Grey (15-1), a horse racing under the fractional ownership program MyRacehorse. Forty-eight of those 2,570 micro-owners, who each paid $127 per share, reside in Maryland.
“He’s a big long shot, although not as big as you think,” senior vice president of 1/ST BET racing and wagering Peter Rotondo said of Seize the Grey. “The MyRacehorse people bet their horse, right? So, there’s actually, we call it MyRacehorse money they call it, it’s sort of like when the odds open [and] they have a horse running, they’re always lower than they should be, let’s say, because a lot of their owners bet to win … because they own the horse, which is great for everybody as you can imagine.”
With Mystik Dan running and some intrigue within the rest of the field, Rotondo is hopeful 1/ST BET, which joins Pimlico and other race tracks under the corporate umbrella of the Stronach Group, can build off the sports betting industry’s success at the Derby — success FanDuel dubbed “Super Bowl levels.” 1/ST BET receives a greater percentage of the profits made from bets placed at the betting windows at Pimlico, but those wagers only make up 30% of all the bets placed through the company.
The focus for 1/ST BET, and the “ambassadors” they will have on-site assisting customers, will be to direct them to place their wagers through the company’s app. Accessibility is a key differentiating factor in the industry, and by having bettors sign up to bet through their phone in person, the hope is they’ll be inclined to make another even if they don’t make it back out to the track.
“Obviously, we love when folks come out for the Preakness to download our 1/ST BET app because they have a good time, they leave and when they watch another horse race, we’d like them to bet through it, which is important,” Rotondo said. “All you got to do is win a couple races and you’re like, ‘Obviously, this makes the experience more fun.’ ”
