The most exciting two minutes in sports occupy a unique position in the US betting landscape. While the Super Bowl and March Madness are by far the biggest events on the sports calendar, the Kentucky Derby offers a betting experience and tradition that in some ways remain unmatched.
This weekend’s running of the Derby is the 151st in Kentucky, making it the oldest regular sporting event in the country — older than the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and the US Open tournaments for both golf and tennis. It is older than the telephone and the zipper.
Santa Anita winner Journalism enters as the 3-1 favorite, looking to win his fifth race in a row. Journalism was sired by Curlin, a hall-of-famer that won the other two legs of the horse racing Triple Crown back in 2007.
Kentucky Derby betting history
Derby Day 2024 generated a record $321 million in total bets across the 14-race program, including $211 million on the main race alone. Jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. rode Mystik Dan (18-1) to a photo win worth $3.1 million. A $2 ticket paid $39.22.
Here are the wagering totals by year dating back to the expansion of legal sports betting in 2018 (Year: Main Race | Program Total):
- 2024: $211 million | $321 million
- 2023: $189 million | $289 million
- 2022: $179 million | $274 million
- 2021: $155 million | $233 million
- 2020: $79.4 million | $126 million
- 2019: $166 million | $251 million
- 2018: $150 million | $228 million
These are all-source figures that include bets placed at Churchill Downs, other tracks and OTBs, and through online platforms. On-track wagering typically accounts for 5% to 10% of the program total.
International interest in Kentucky Derby betting seems to be on the rise, with more than $10 million of last year’s volume originating from Japan specifically.
Parimutuels and parlay-like payouts
Unlike most sporting events where bettors compete against the house with fixed odds, horse betting exists primarily via the parimutuel system. All wagers go into a shared pool, the track takes a percentage of the total, and the remaining funds are distributed to the winning bettors.
This creates a fundamentally different dynamic from traditional against-the-house betting on sports. Derby odds fluctuate continuously right up to post time based entirely on the betting action (rather than bookmaker adjustments), making them a direct reflection of the consensus probabilities.
Exotic wagers like exactas, trifectas, and superfectas are the horse racing equivalent of a same-game parlay, creating the potential for a life-changing payout from a small wager — something that certainly appeals to the average sports bettor. A successful $1 superfecta on the 2022 race, as an extreme example, paid more than $320,000.
Operators, therefore, view the race as another key acquisition opportunity and a rare chance to convert horse players into sports bettors. To that end, DraftKings’ DK Horse product and FanDuel Racing (formerly TVG) are available alongside their parent sportsbook apps in many states.
Stacking the Derby up to sports
In absolute terms, the Kentucky Derby is still not nearly as large as the other marquee betting events on the sports calendar.
The Super Bowl, for comparison, drew upward of $1.5 billion in legal wagers this year to reinforce its position as the largest single-day betting event in the country. March Madness betting was at least twice as large as that, but action on the men’s NCAA tournament is spread across 67 games spanning more than three weeks.
The Kentucky Derby is over in just 120 seconds or so. When it comes to betting-dollars-per-minute of competition, nothing in sports really comes close.
