How Online Horse Racing Betting Has Changed Throughout the Years

There is no horse racing without betting, and that’s a fact. It makes the sport more exciting, and unpredictable, and fuels everyone with that adrenaline rush the moment the gates drop at a race.

The horse racing betting industry grew into a multi-billion-dollar industry and there are a couple of reasons for this. 

Photo:  Photo by Jeff Griffith on Unsplash

First of all, the number of professional horse races is growing, which means that there is more action to bet on. Secondly, the betting industry has changed significantly, offering more bets, making the entire process more available to the whole world, and we have the use of modern technology.

At first glance, horse racing betting might be the same as a few decades ago, but once you dig deeper, you’ll find that the industry has changed significantly. 

Horse Racing Betting – The Beginnings

Initially, horse racing betting was quite straightforward. You show up at an event, pick a horse that you think is fast, and place your bet. That’s it!

It was simple, yet unpredictable. This system offered a limited selection of bets, and in order to place one, you have to physically be there.

But with the introduction of the internet, things started to change.

The Internet Revolution

In the mid-90s, we started to see the first use cases of the Internet as it started to reshape many industries, including horse racing betting. We’ve got the birth of the first online betting websites, which changed the whole game.

Suddenly, you didn’t need to go there in person, as you can place your bet through your computer. With that said, the first betting websites didn’t look anything like today’s modern betting websites. They allowed bettors to place a limited selection of wagers (and races) remotely and that’s about it.

But this was the change that brought a lot of attention to the betting industry and offered a future-proof model that has huge potential.

Online Horse Racing Betting

Online horse racing betting really took off in the mid-20s when we got the first fully functional, user-friendly betting websites with a lot more options. 

Fast forward to today, and we have many different online betting platforms that introduced revolutionary things like combining wagers, live betting, fast deposits and withdrawals, bonuses, promotions, and much more.

The Use of Data in Horse Racing Betting

Another important milestone for the horse racing betting industry was the introduction of data and analytics for previous horse racing events. As we all know, horse racing is a sport that relies on data, or in other words, you can improve your winning chances by researching more about track conditions, the jockey’s history, the horse’s form, speed, and much more.

In other words, if you go through all the past Kentucky Derby results, you’ll get a better understanding of which horse is more likely to win in an upcoming event. 

This revolution changed the way people place wagers on horse racing. Nowadays, even bookies want you to make informed decisions, and most of them provide you with a lot of information about all the contenders of a race.

Crypto Betting

The introduction of blockchain and cryptocurrencies really changed the world of betting. All of a sudden, people had an alternative to FIAT, where they could place wagers on online betting platforms without using a middleman (bank).

This process offered many benefits for both bettors and bookies. Cryptocurrencies are more secure since every transaction is permanently recorded on the blockchain, they also have lower fees, and the process is much faster than using a bank.

But the biggest change that came with crypto was the globalization of online horse racing betting. Even though we are talking about a popular sport, it isn’t available in every part of the world. But thanks to cryptocurrencies, most people could easily bypass geo-restrictions and place bets on whatever race they want.

The Use of Big Data and AI

If you think about it, AI was properly introduced a little more than a year ago, and since then, this technology has taken over the world. We are seeing incredible growth, and still cannot grasp the full potential of artificial intelligence and big data.

This technology also found its use in horse racing betting. Big data has been used to analyze horse racing events and track records since the beginning of the sport.

AI on the other hand has many different uses in horse racing betting. Nowadays, the use of AI software to predict horse races is quite popular. The idea is to give an AI a lot of information about a certain race, and this software will be able to predict the outcome of a race with a scary level of accuracy.

Final Words

As you can see, horse racing betting might look the same as a few decades ago, but in reality, there are a lot of things that have changed. This industry is also focusing more on mobile devices since they are now quite popular, and people use smartphones for everything.

All of these changes happen in a few years, which is kind of scary when you think about the future of horse racing betting. Who knows where are we headed?