Bookmaker Sponsorship of British Racing Falls 17% as bet365 Sponsors 77% Fewer Races

A Racing Post count of every British race title shows bookmakers sponsoring 17% fewer races this year, with the cuts deepening after Remote Gaming Duty went to 40% in April. It lands three weeks before a Budget that may raise machine games duty, which would hit racing harder.

• Bookmaker sponsorship of British horseracing fell 17% year on year between 1 January and 28 September 2026, according to a Racing Post analysis of every British race title published on 6 October
• Sponsorship by bet365, Betfred and Flutter Entertainment fell by more than 15%, and bet365 had 77% fewer race sponsorships, having also cut 340 jobs for similar reasons
• The cuts began in earnest in April, when Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40%, with bookmaker sponsorships falling by an average of 8.8% a month against the same months of 2025
• All-weather racing was hit hardest, with 58.2% of its races carrying bookmaker sponsorship in 2026 against 73.3% a year earlier
• A machine games duty rise is reported to be under consideration for the 28 October Budget; Regulus Partners estimates a doubling would cost racing £92 million a year

The Racing Post Counted Every Race, and the Bookmakers Are Leaving the Small Ones First

Bookmaker sponsorship of British racing has fallen by 17% since the tax rises in last year's Budget, according to an analysis by the Racing Post published on 6 October. The paper recorded who sponsored every British race title from 1 January to 28 September in both years and sorted the backers into bookmakers, other gambling-related firms, other commercial and private sponsors, unsponsored or track-sponsored races, and contra deals such as charities or broadcasters.

Sponsorship by bet365, Betfred and Flutter Entertainment fell by upward of 15%, according to the analysis; Unibet cut back by 18.5%, JenningsBet by 33%, and Star Sports and BetGoodwin by more than 80%. The Racing Post does not publish what sponsors paid, so the figures describe races sponsored, not money spent. Races with no sponsor or a contra deal rose by 16%, while private and other commercial sponsorship grew by only 3%. Smaller operators filled some of the gap: Midnite sponsored 369 races in 2026 and Copybet 119.

The cuts started to bite in April, when Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40%, with bookmaker sponsorships down by an average of 8.8% a month against the same months of 2025, according to the Racing Post. The November 2025 Budget also set a new 25% remote rate of General Betting Duty from 1 April 2027, but HM Revenue and Customs' policy paper excludes remote bets on UK horseracing, which stay at 15% because operators already pay 10% into the statutory Horserace Betting Levy.

bet365 has had 77% fewer race sponsorships this year, according to the analysis. It ended long-running deals including Newmarket's Craven meeting, the Lancashire Oaks and Perth's April meeting, and had been a prominent sponsor at Chelmsford. A bet365 spokesperson told the Racing Post the company was facing "a highly competitive trading environment, plus increased regulatory and tax-related costs", which had required "tough commercial choices", and said racing remained an important part of its business.

All-Weather Fixtures and Smaller Tracks Feel It Most

All-weather racing has lost the most bookmaker backing. Of all-weather races in 2026, 58.2% carried bookmaker sponsorship, against 73.3% in 2025, according to the Racing Post, with reductions at Wolverhampton (15.6%), Southwell (11.8%), Lingfield (6.5%) and Newcastle (2.1%). Prize money for bookmaker-backed races fell 2.5% in 2026, a 5.5% fall in real terms once inflation is taken into account.

At Perth, where bookmaker sponsorship fell 9.8%, director of racing Matthew Taylor told the paper he had expected bet365 to stop as soon as the Budget came out, since the track has only two days on ITV. Ripon was almost untouched, with bookmaker sponsorship down 0.1% thanks to a deal with William Hill that has run for more than 25 years. Its chief executive, James Hutchinson, said regulations and taxes had made it "more difficult for them to spend as they once did".

No statement from the British Horseracing Authority on the analysis was found at the time of writing.

The Tax Design Protected Racing's Betting Rate, Not Its Marketing Income

The November 2025 Budget went out of its way to spare British racing: remote bets on UK races were kept at 15%, explicitly because of the levy. But sponsorship is not paid from racing's betting tax line. It comes from a bookmaker's discretionary marketing budget, paid for from group profits that since April have carried a 40% duty on online gaming. The monthly figures, steepening from April, fit that reading, and bet365's own explanation says the same. The protection was real but narrower than racing hoped, and the racing-owned Tote's closure of its online gaming business this week, which its chief executive tied to tax and regulation, shows the pressure reaches racing's own operators too.

The Count Measures Presence, and the Money Is Probably Worse

The analysis counts race titles, not fees, and a race sponsored by Midnite need not be worth what the bet365 deal it replaced was worth. The 2.5% fall in prize money for bookmaker-backed races, 5.5% in real terms, is the nearest proxy for value in the data. Where the losses fall matters too: all-weather cards and tracks with little television time, which have fewer other sponsors to turn to. A long-standing deal, as at Ripon, has been the best protection, yet even Ripon is courting smaller sponsors at £500 to £600 a race, its chief executive said, and unsponsored races and contra deals are up 16% nationally.

Machine Games Duty Is the Bigger Number, and the Classics Are the Test

Machine games duty is the larger exposure. Regulus Partners estimates racing would lose £92 million a year, about a third of its revenue from betting, if the 20% standard rate were doubled, as the Racing Post reported; an earlier estimate reported by the paper put the levy loss alone at around £70 million. The mechanism runs through the shop estate, where machine income helps keep open the counters that take racing bets. Operators have set out what they say would follow: Fred Done has said doubling the duty would shut 495 Betfred shops, and has tied Betfred's sponsorship of the five Classics to the outcome. These are warnings from interested parties, and the Treasury has proposed no rate. Whether Betfred's name stays on the Classics after 28 October will show how far those warnings were negotiating positions.

Racing has already lost a sixth of its bookmaker-sponsored races under a tax package that was designed to spare it. The Budget on 28 October will decide whether that was the bottom or the first step.