The Melbourne Cup, a 3,200-metre race for horses more than three years old, has long been called "the race that stops the nation".
Author
- Charles Livingstone
Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University
Held each year on the first Tuesday in November at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, it attracts racehorses from overseas, politicians, sporting identities, fashionistas and others from among the wealthy and the famous.
It's also a bonanza for betting companies. As Australia's biggest one-day race gambling event, the total amount wagered currently exceeds that of any other Australian horse race by far.
But much of the gloss has been rubbed off. Other prestige races are coming up on its heels, and punters are increasingly drawn to betting on other activities - such as AFL and NRL.
And there's also been a long-term decline in interest in animal racing in general, amid growing concerns about animal cruelty .
So, is the Melbourne Cup still stopping the nation in the way it used to? Here's what the numbers reveal.
Shrinking crowds
In 2003, in-person attendance at the Cup was nearly 123,000, the biggest crowd since the turn of the millennium. By 2024, that had declined to 91,000.
The largest crowd in the intervening years was in 2010, when over 110,000 attended.
The Victoria Racing Club argues active attempts were made to reduce crowd sizes after 2003, when it became clear that a crowd of over 120,000 people made for an uncomfortable day at the races.
But the trend for attendance has been on a downward trajectory throughout the 21st century. There has been a modest recovery post-pandemic restrictions, but crowds are still well down from the peak.
A TV broadcast watched by fewer people across the nation
What about the Melbourne Cup's TV audience? Many workplaces around the country still stop work to watch the race on TV - even in the work-from-home era. Victoria has a dedicated public holiday.
The Australian Financial Review reports that before 2015, the TV audience was over 3 million. In 2021, that declined to 1.7 million, and in 2022 to 1.35 million.
A new broadcaster, the Nine network, took that viewership back up to 1.9 million in 2024. But it's still well off its high.
Bookmakers' big day - but it is falling
Bookmakers love the Melbourne Cup. It provides them with a major opportunity to sign up new, casual punters who open an account to place a bet on the day.
Once they're on board, the marketing to these customers is unending .
In 2022, turnover on the Cup - the amount that is bet, as opposed to revenue, which is the amount punters lose (and bookies keep) - was A$226 million .
By 2024, that had declined to $214 million .
According to Racing Victoria, this remains the highest-race turnover in Australia, well above the next placed. But it still represents a decline between 2022 and 2024 of about 13% in real terms (adjusted for inflation).
In recent years, total wagering turnover in Australia - meaning betting on any events, from sports to elections - has also surprisingly declined.
Total real wagering turnover was $22.3 billion in 2023-24, down from $31.2 billion in 2020-21 (again, in real terms).
A recent survey on gambling behaviour in New South Wales reported race wagering as a proportion of the NSW population declined from 24% in 2011 to 9.9% in 2024.
Participation in sports wagering in NSW, however, grew from 6.1% in 2019 to 7.6% in 2024, with stronger engagement among younger men.
Competition from 'richer' races
The Melbourne Cup also faces competition from relatively new entries in the prestige (group 1) race stakes.
For example, since 2017, Racing NSW has run The Everest, now a $20 million race, at Royal Randwick racecourse in Sydney, on Caulfield Cup day. It has since moved to second place in wagering turnover , surpassing every other race except the Melbourne Cup.
However, wagering turnover is well behind the Cup. Crowds are much smaller, too, at around 50,000. It needs to grow quite a bit to overshadow the Cup.
Societal shift
So, why is the Melbourne Cup, and horse racing generally, in decline?
Falling wagering overall, and the emergence of new gambling markets, go some way to explain it.
Researchers have also reported a societal shift towards "a strong animal ethics sentiment combined with a more generalised disdain towards the racing industry and its wider societal ramifications"
The "#Nuptothecup" movement is credited with much of this shift. It runs a website listing alternative activities and providing arguments against animal racing.
The parent organisation of this movement, the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, runs a " deathwatch " cataloguing the number of racehorses killed in races: 175 in 2024-25. This has become an important issue for many.
Those who support the Melbourne Cup tend to rely on slightly opaque economic arguments : it employs people, generates revenue for Victoria and boosts business income because of tourism.
The Cup is still big business. But it's not as big as it used to be, either culturally or even in dollar terms.
Charles Livingstone has received funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the (former) Victorian Gambling Research Panel, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Institute, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Finnish Alcohol Research Foundation, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, the Turkish Red Crescent Society, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He was a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government's Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010-11. He is a member of the Lancet Public Health Commission into gambling, and of the World Health Organisation expert group on gambling and gambling harm. He made a submission to and appeared before the HoR Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm.
