Horseracing remains Australia’s favorite gambling activity, despite the headline-grabbing rantings of anti-gambling activists regarding the rise of sports betting.
Roy Morgan Research recently released its latest Gambling Currency Report, which showed horseracing accounting for 50.9% of Australia’s total betting market (62.3% if you include harness racing). Sports betting managed only a 25% share, followed by greyhound racing at 12.5% and those aforementioned harness trotters at 11.4%.
Australia’s top two domestic sports leagues led the sports betting brigade, with 7.6% of sports wagers on the National Rugby League, while the Australian Football League claimed a 6.8% share. The catch-all ‘other’ category claimed the remaining 10.7%.
The Report revealed that 10.5% of Aussie adults (over 2m) had made a bet of some kind in the previous three months, with men (13.9%) more likely than women (7.3%) to have answered ‘yes’ to that question.
Those in the 50-64 age demo were most likely (12.6%) to have placed a wager, followed by those aged 35-49 (11.3%), the 65+ group (10.2%) and 9.3% of those aged 25-34, while just 7.2% of adults under-25 copped to wagering, dealing yet another blow to the ‘think of the children’ memes of the anti-betting brigades.
In geographic terms, the well-populated state of Victoria was the most bet-friendly, with 11.5% of residents making a wager in the past three months. New South Wales and the Northern Territory tied for second place with 11.1%. All other states were below the national average of 10.5%, with tiny Tasmania ranking dead last with 7.2% participation.
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine claimed the regional disparity could be attributed to the lack of available pro sports content in smaller markets. Tasmania has zero pro football clubs, while at the other end of the spectrum, NSW has 17 AFL/NRL/Super Rugby/A-League clubs.
Levine explained the Northern Territory’s outlier status in geographic terms as reflecting the region’s reputation as home to the majority of the nation’s online sports betting operators.
