The year 2024 for horse-race betting was, as for the entire sector, full of contradictions, but at the same time it can be said that in the end the data confirms the trend that had also been seen in the previous year, i.e. a marked drop in the totalisator game, both agency and national horse-race, respectively by 9.41% and 5.45%, offset however by the growth of the fixed odds game, which increased by 5.75%, but on a movement base about four times higher. In summary, on the two totalisators, a total of approximately 126 million euros were played, 10 million less than last year, while the fixed odds, including the complementary schedule, produced 486 million euros, with an annual increase of 26.5 million euros.
In the sum of all market components, the overall collection stood at EUR 649 million compared to EUR 668, 39 in 2023. It must be said that if in the first part of the year the differential sign had been a ‘+’, in the last seven months there has been a counter-tendency even in the fixed fee, probably due to the expectation of the reduction in the tax rate that had been announced and then finalised with the approval in recent days of the budget law.
With regard to the state levy, the figures are essentially identical. In fact, the State collected €43 million 342,850 from horse-race betting, compared to €43 million 261,292 last year (+0.19%), and here the levy on fixed odds betting is particularly influential, with an increase of approximately €1.5 million, or 7.18%, compared to 2023.
