The British Horseracing Board has published the detailed findings of a survey of betting shop punters which was first presented to the Board’s Annual General Meeting on 10th June.
A 78-page report from Opinion Leader Research (OLR), the company which carried out the survey, was released at a press conference in London today.
OLR interviewed 1,000 punters as they left betting shops up and down the country last month. The report published today includes a full demographic breakdown of all the responses.
Among the main findings are that:

* 77% of punters (and 88% of daily punters) say they usually visit a betting shop to bet on horseracing

* 72% think prize money in British horseracing is not high enough

* 91% say the betting industry should contribute more to racing from its profits

BHB Chairman, Peter Savill, said: “”The OLR report underlines what I said in my speech to the AGM: that there is solid support among the bookmakers’ own customers for the key arguments in the BHB’s Financial Plan.
“”The betting industry naturally finds this unpalatable and they have tried to distract attention from the findings by attacking the integrity of the survey, in particular the opinions expressed by punters about the betting industry itself.

“”We are determined to press ahead with our campaign for a higher percentage of betting turnover to be returned to racing and, with the Levy negotiations due to begin soon, the results of this independent survey are extremely encouraging.””
Viki Cooke, Director and Co-Founder of Opinion Leader Research, said: “”The survey was an objective exercise using standard methodology and sampling techniques. It was carried out to the highest professional standards. As today’s report confirms, the presentation made to the BHB’s Annual General Meeting accurately reflected the relevant findings of the survey.””