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Bookies Turn Their Backs on Horse Racing as Sponsorship Revenue Plummets 17%

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Two Horses Running Bend in Turf Race

UK horse racing is facing another financial crisis as bookmakers and betting sites turn their back on the sport.

Analysis by the Racing Post has confirmed that operators have cut their sponsorship spending in racing by 17% – figures released almost a year to the day since the government announced their Gambling Tax hikes.

And it was the fall-out from that Autumn Budget, with racing stakeholders celebrating a ‘carve out’ that protected the sport from betting tax increases, that seems to have had a considerable impact on how and where bookies spend their marketing money.

Cutting Ties

According to the data, firms like Star Sports and BetGoodwin have spent 80% less on individual race and meeting sponsorships in 2026 than they did last year.

JenningsBet has cut their spend by 33%, while mainstream UK firms Betfred and Flutter – home to Betfair and Paddy Power – have also slashed their sponsorship spending by 15% or more.

Although specific figures haven’t been published, it means that prize money – which is propped up by contributions from betting firms – has fallen 2.5% in 2026 for bookmaker-sponsored races.

With trainers and owners facing a catalogue of financial pressures, prize money needs to increase for the smaller yards to remain viable – not decrease, as has been the case since the Gambling Tax debacle that first unfolded in November.

Racing’s key players marched on Westminster last September to protest the planned duty increase, launching their ‘Axe the Racing Tax’ campaign. British racing also went on strike, with meetings at Carlisle, Kempton, Lingfield and Uttoxeter cancelled.

While racing ultimately enjoyed a stay of execution in Rachel Reeves’ budget, bookmakers were hit harder than expected with significant tax increases on their sports betting and casino gaming operations.

Industry insiders have remarked that many senior officials within UK betting firms felt racing celebrated a little too jubilantly at the time, with sponsorship cutbacks both a financial necessity and an act of revenge.

A leading bookmaker cut all ties with the July and Craven meetings at Newmarket, as well as other individual races that they had previously sponsored, while BetMGM pulled the plug on their Fighting Fifth deal.

Entain ended one of the longest-standing sponsorships in racing, with 52 years of the Coral Cup coming to an end, while simultaneously revealing that they would instead be sponsoring Birmingham City FC.

Hardest hit has been the low value races worth under £10,000, as well as action at the all-weather tracks.

Autumn Budget Bombshell

Houses of Parliament Across Thames with Autumn Leaves

Bookmakers have cited a ‘highly competitive trading environment’ and ‘increased regulatory and tax-related costs’ as the main reasons for the pullback.

And their hand could be forced again later this month when the next Autumn Budget is announced by Reeves’ successor as chancellor, John Healey.

It’s expected that he will hike another industry tax, this time Machine Games Duty (MGD), with suggestions that a grab of a further 15-25% is in the offing.

The gaming machines are a staple of high street betting shops and are a key source of revenue for retail operators, so the tax increase will likely make hundreds – if not thousands – of shops no longer viable, with the loss of as many as 16,000 jobs.

Mass closures will likely follow, which will cause thousands of redundancies – and a catastrophic cut in the funding flowing back into racing. Not only will betting levy payments tumble, but so will media rights payments; it’s estimated that the standard shop pays around £70,000 for the right to broadcast races in-store.

Industry analysts Regulus Partners have warned that UK racing could lose a staggering £92 million a year if MGD is hiked, which equates to around 30% of the sport’s annual revenue.

And with bookmakers no longer willing to prop the sport up with lucrative sponsorship deals, it’s hard to see where any new sources of revenue are going to come from. Betfred founder Fred Done has already confirmed that his firm will no longer sponsor the English Classics on the Flat if MGD is doubled.

So then prize money falls… and you don’t need to be an expert to know where that slippery slope leads.

An October update from the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) reads:

“It was perhaps unrealistic to expect that, following last year’s Budget and the significant debate triggered by HM Treasury’s consultation on remote gambling tax rates, we would not be back again 12 months later facing a further threat to racing’s income.

“The plan… makes no attempt to assess the potential second-order impacts – caused by a further loss of betting shops – of such a move on British racing.”