Horseracing commenced soon after European settlement, and is now well-appointed with automatic totalizators, starting gates and photo finish cameras on nearly all Australian racecourses.
Australia is second to the United States in the number of horses starting in races each year. Australia is third, after the U.S. and Japan for the amount of prize money that is distributed annually.The Australian betting calendar is, of course, dominated by the Melbourne Cup , a true Australian institution that also enjoys a strong international following. Every November the nation stops to see who will win the legendary race at Flemington Racecourse, with seemingly every citizen having a bet in one way or another.
Like I said,Australia’s most coveted race is the annual Melbourne Cup, which takes place on the first Tuesday of November each year and is worth an incredible $6 million. Every year this historic event, which began in 1861, attracts crowds in excess of 100,000 people.
The Melbourne Cup attracts an annual viewership of nearly 2.6 million people, not including those who watch the race at bars, schools and offices, and truly is the ‘race that stops a nation’. Every year, each person on average in Australia places $8.50 worth of bets on the race that incites interest from the entire country.
Horse racing in Australia offers some of the most lucrative prize money in the world, with almost $422 million paid out annually to money winning horses. This figure is the third highest in the globe, behind only Japan ($1.36 billion) and the United States ($1.42 billion). Throughout the year Australians turn over more than $14.3 billion in wagering, equalling an average of $637 per person. $10 billion of this money is wagered on the TAB, while in excess of $4.3 billion is spent on the track or with online bookmakers.
The horse racing industry generates more than $6.2 billion in revenue for the Australian economy each year and provides jobs for 250,000 people, demonstrating the reach of racing industry on the Australian culture. Racing culture is so prevalent in their day to day life that approximately 1 in every 89 Australians are working in the industry.
Like I said, besides being a spectator sport, horseracing is an industry, which provides full or part-time employment for almost 250,000 people, the equivalent of 77,000 jobs. About 300,000 people have a direct interest as individual owners of, or members of syndicates which own, the 30,000 horses in training in Australia. There are bookmakers, over 3,600 registered trainers and more than 1,000 jockeys, plus farriers and veterinarians involved at race meetings alone. Race meetings are organized by approximately 374 race clubs that conduct about 2,694 meetings on 360 racecourses around Australia for over $427,245,000 in prize money
Other major Australian thoroughbred meets include the Cox Plate, also held in Melbourne, the Golden Slipper, the Victoria Derby, the VRC Oaks and the Caulfield Cup, just to name a few.
This article along with other horse betting articles can be found on http://www.bettingthehorsesonline.com
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