Australians still betting big on Melbourne Cup, despite many saying they’re losing interest in race
Australians say they are losing interest in the Melbourne Cup and the animal welfare campaign against it has never wavered, but the amount of money gambled on the race has barely changed since the start of the pandemic,Wagering turnover on the Melbourne Cup has fallen only slightly from the $221m recorded in 2020 to $214m last year,The five-year average spend, according to Racing Victoria figures, remains $220m,The amount of money being gambled on horse racing in Australia overall has fallen sharply, however, presenting a challenge to the long-term sustainability of the industry,In Victoria, the amount of money gambled on horse racing fell by 10.
2% last financial year.This followed a 4% drop a year earlier.Wagering turnover dropped from $9.1bn in 2022 to $7.9bn last financial year, according to Racing Victoria.
Rather than blaming declining interest, Racing Victoria has cited cost-of-living pressures, higher interest rates, a trend towards gambling on other sports, a “reduction in advertising and customer promotions” and more regulation.Similar declines have been reported in New South Wales, where wagering revenue has dropped by 9.6% in two years.In 2023, Racing NSW reported gambling turnover of $335m.Last year, it dropped to $302m.
Sign up: AU Breaking News emailBut the Melbourne Cup continues to encourage gambling from people who have little if any interest in horse racing beyond the day,Charles Livingstone, a gambling researcher at Monash University, said the cup was “an event for people who don’t know anything about horses” and a money-spinner for bookmakers,“This is like the grand final – it’s a great marketing opportunity,” Livingstone said,“It gives the gambling companies an opportunity to persuade people who wouldn’t usually bet to download their app,“If you’re a young bloke who downloads it for the cup, they’ll probably understand you like sport and start giving you incentives to gamble on the AFL, cricket and tennis.
”Racing Victoria and Racing NSW have blamed a decline in overall revenue on bookmakers offering fewer “free bet” promotions.The tactic was condemned by a parliamentary inquiry into gambling harm more than two years ago.In Victoria, the number of “free bets” offered on horse racing fell by almost 10% between July and November last year.This reduced the amount of money wagered on free bets from $184.6m to $166.
7m.Despite this, the margins of bookmakers increased last year from 14.2% to 15.4%.Racing Victoria attributed this to fewer favourites winning.
Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotion“We were fortunate to have benefitted from stronger than average wagering operator gross margins, which drove strong race fields product fee income and offset the turnover decline,” Racing Victoria’s chief executive, Aaron Morrison, said in the group’s latest annual report,Product fee income refers to the share of money Racing Victoria receives from bets placed on the sport,In August, the Dublin-based gambling giant Flutter said Australia “continues to experience a softer racing market, which is expected to continue in the near term”,The company’s financial report said the broader sports market – including AFL and NRL – had shown “continued growth”,Flutter’s statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission said Sportsbet had reduced the money it spent on promotional offers, but made them more targeted.
It referred to the change as “optimised generosity”.Gambling giant Entain also reported “continuing softness in the underlying market” in Australia, where its subsidiary brands Neds and Ladbrokes reported a 7% drop in growth during six months to June 2025.Racing bodies have invested significant time and money into appealing to a younger audience to revitalise spring carnivals.This has included partnerships with live music festivals – including the promoter Live Nation APAC.Racing Victoria reported a Derby Day crowd of more than 86,000 on Saturday, which was a 5.
5% increase on the 2024 tally,
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Knee-jerk corporate responses to data leaks protect brands like Qantas — but consumers are getting screwed
It’s become the playbook for big Australian companies that have customer data stolen in a cyber-attack: call in the lawyers and get a court to block anyone from accessing it.Qantas ran it after suffering a major cybersecurity attack that accessed the frequent flyer details of 5 million customers.The airline joined the long list of companies in Australia, dating back to the HWL Ebsworth breach in 2023, to go to the New South Wals supreme court to obtain an injunction against “persons unknown” – banning the hackers (and anyone else) from accessing or using the data under threat of prosecution.Of course, it didn’t stop hackers leaking the customer data on the dark web a few months later.But it might have come as a surprise when the ID protection company Equifax this month began alerting Qantas customers that their data had been leaked – since access to the data was supposedly banned
Ducking annoying: why has iPhone’s autocorrect function gone haywire?
Don’t worry, you’re not going mad.If you feel the autocorrect on your iPhone has gone haywire recently – inexplicably correcting words such as “come” to “coke” and “winter” to “w Inter” – then you are not the only one.Judging by comments online, hundreds of internet sleuths feel the same way, with some fearing it will never be solved.Apple released its latest operating system, iOS 26, in September. About a month later, conspiracy theories abound, and a video purporting to show an iPhone keyboard changing a user’s spelling of the word “thumb” to “thjmb” has racked up more than 9m views
Apple reports record iPhone sales as new lineup reignites worldwide demand
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Amazon reports strongest cloud growth since 2022 after major outage
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