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Horse betting: Learn the basics of horse racing easily.

The world of gambling is divided into 4 main families:

  • sports betting: single games, combined games, scorers, double chance, ...
  • casino games: slot machines, poker, blackjack, roulette, etc.
  • lottery games: scratch cards, Loto, Kéno, Euromillions, ...
  • horse betting: single games, quinté, 2/4, multi, ...

The latter family is often overlooked because it is less popular than sports betting, for example.
For most gamblers, when you think of horse betting, you think of an elderly person, leaning against the counter at the PMU bar on the corner, playing random numbers, hoping to win the jackpot by finding the five-plus in order.

This is a caricature, but often very revealing of current beliefs.

Table of Contents

The basics of horse betting

Horse betting involves betting on one or more horses in a race with 6 to 20 starters, which must finish in the top 5 depending on the type of bet played.

Horse racing takes place 365 days a year and there are on average 40 races a day in France, with one race a day being the event of the day as it is the Tiercé-Quarté-Quinté+ race.

tableau avec des chevaux dans le salon d'un parieur hippique
Why not take an interest in horse betting?

In horse betting there are two main disciplines: trotting and galloping which correspond to the gaits of the horses.

These disciplines have sub-categories: 

  • in trotting, there is mounted and harnessed trotting
  • in gallop, there are flat races and obstacle races.

The typical profile of the horse bettor

The information given below is taken from the 4th quarter 2021 report issued by the National Gaming Authority (NGA).

The annual stakes volume is €1.583 billion in 2021 for 625,000 Active Player Accounts (APAs), i.e. an average stake of over €2,500 per APA. For comparison, in sports betting, we count €1,763 in annual stakes per APA, i.e. 30% less.

We can therefore see that horse bettors bet more than sports bettors despite the fact that they are 7 times less numerous.

There are three main reasons for the low number of Active Player Accounts (APAs):

  • Horse betting is less popular than sports betting,
  • horse racing operators are less numerous than sports betting operators,
  • 40% of horse betting stakes are made in the physical network (PMU bar, racecourses), a much larger share than for sports betting.
chiffre-paris-hippiques
What are the figures around horse betting?

In terms of age, horse bettors have a median age of 44, compared to 28 for sports bettors.

81% of horse betting players are men. However, the percentage of women (19%) is the highest compared to poker (13%) and sports betting (15%).

Geographically, the majority of horse bettors are located in the northern part of France, due to a more established horse-riding tradition than in the rest of the country.

The average monthly stake for horse bettors is €369 compared to €238 for sports bettors.

As in sports betting, a large proportion of the total stakes are attributed to a small proportion of horse bettors. There are 10% of the bettors representing 73% of the total stakes played for the 4th quarter 2021.

Among horse bettors with an online player account, 58% of horse bettors play on a tablet or smartphone and 42% on a computer. This is half the number of sports bettors.

This statistic is in line with the average age of horse bettors, who seem to take the time to place their bets in contrast to sports bettors who tend to bet quickly on their smartphone.

Why so few horse bettors?

There are 7 times fewer horse bettors than sports bettors. Why is that?

Reason 1: Horse racing receives less media attention than football, rugby or tennis.

Reason 2: Lack of knowledge. Most punters are not familiar with horse betting (the types of bets, the tricks and technicalities of horse racing).

Reason 3: pari-mutuel betting. This is because, unlike in sports betting, punters do not play against bookmakers, but against other punters. Thus, profitable bettors keep their advantage over other horse bettors by not spreading the knowledge and their paying strategies in order to keep an advantage over other bettors. Pooling means that at the end of the race the bettors who have bet on the same horse share the related winnings. The more the horse is played, the less it will pay, unlike in sports betting where the odds are linked, the odds of a horse evolve until the start of the race.

In recent months, the horse betting world has been rejuvenated and is gradually moving into the world of crypto-currencies. Two platforms are attempting to revolutionise horse racing by adopting a similar model to the Sorare platform for football.

The horse betting world is trying to diversify to attract people and rejuvenate the customer base.

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