Racing dropped $20 million in two years. But a Melbourne Cup day betting bonanza provides new hope

But the industry’s severe cost-cutting measures were offset by the continued decline in wagering turnover, down 4 per cent from $7.93 billion to $7.611 billion – still 8.4 per cent above pre-COVID levels.

Gambling peaked at $9.1 billion during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Despite a $10.2 million drop in income last year, down two per cent from $536.7 million to $526.5 million, Racing Victoria continued to fork out $288.6 million in prizemoney and bonuses. It paid out $290.1 million the year before.

Morrison has already committed to maintaining prizemoney levels for this financial year.

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“There is definitely pressure to maintain prizemoney, but we’ve got to cut the sausage so many ways every year – prizemoney is the biggest bit, then there’s club funding, there’s infrastructure investment, there’s welfare spend,” Morrison said.

“What I do know is the bit I can control in terms of our operating costs – that’s well-managed and reducing where it needs to. I think we are doing the things we need to.”

Racing Victoria released a statement on Thursday announcing a normalised financial year deficit of $2.53 million – a figure reduced from the net loss of $8.88 million because it takes into account one-off adjustments such as the $2.65 million RSN impairment charge and staff redundancy and termination payments.

But Morrison admitted there was pressure for the Victoria racing industry to return to growth.

“We are not going to be able to cut our way to sustainability much more,” Morrison said.

“What we’ve really got to do is focus on growing the sport, and that’s why you’ve heard me speak so much about promoting the sport to a broader audience.

“I think we have done that really well in the last couple of months and hopefully the benefit of that will be seen in commercial terms to come. I feel like our engagement metrics are really strong, our audiences have grown.

“Attendances would show that there are new audiences – visibly you can see there is a younger crowd returning to racing, so we have got to make that translate into commercial growth.”

Morrison said the industry would see millions of dollars in benefits in coming years from the decisions made in the past 12 months, including a new broadcasting deal with Channel Seven.

He said there was also a renewed confidence in wagering turnover.

“There was a time in the first half of last year, we were down eight to 10 per cent [year-on-year],” he said.

“But more recently it has improved year-on-year, which is great to say for the first time in probably four or five years since the peaks of COVID.”

Wagering turnover hit a new high for last week’s Melbourne Cup. Punters forked out $382.5 million on the race that stops the nation – eclipsing the previous record of $375.6 million set in 2021.

The annual report also revealed that more than 64,000 people were registered as racehorse owners last year and 1.16 million people attended racetracks across the state.

There were 20 horse fatalities in flat racing in Victoria from 41,510 starters – a fatality rate of 0.048%, down from 0.055% the season before.

Three horses died from 405 starters in jumps racing – a fatality rate of 0.74%, down from 1.2% the year before.

Prohibited substances were detected in nine of 11,134 equine samples collected by Racing Victoria, down from 13 in the 2023-24 season and 18 the year before.

Racing Victoria also increased the minimum penalty for the use, or attempted use, of electronic devices (such as a jigger) from two years to five years.

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