Flutter Entertainment and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) have identified three core concerns among racegoers which the duo believe horseracing needs to overcome.

The conclusions came about as a result of the duo’s Project Beacon research into horseracing’s core audience, largely centred on a survey of 7,500 people. This research led to the hosting of the Future of Racing Summit last week, an exhibition of startups.

According to Flutter and the BHA, the cost of attending races, difficulty in understanding horseracing terminology, and the welfare of racehorses are key concerns for racegoers. This is particularly evident in the 17-28 age group.

Horseracing remains the second most bet on sport in the UK, having been overtaken by football in 2019. However, despite a rebound in 2025, the sport continues to struggle with attendees and an over-reliance on horseracing betting levy payments, sponsorship and media rights payments.

Finding out how to make horseracing appeal to a new generation of sports fans and bettors has been puzzling the industry for some time. This is a challenge that Flutter and the BHA are wanting to tackle head on in 2026.

“The Future of Racing Summit was a fascinating event that demonstrated the range of technologies that exist which have the potential to grow our sport,” said David Jones, Senior Independent Director of the BHA.

“It was most heartening to see companies travelling from all over the world to pitch to senior racing leaders, demonstrating that those of us inside the sport are not alone in seeing the opportunities that exist within British racing; others do too and we should be excited by what that tells us.

“What Project Beacon has done is create a data set that businesses can understand and target solutions towards. I look forward to following the relationships that have been developed through the course of this initiative and learning more about how they can help support our goals for racing’s future.”

Racing’s tech future

The Future of Racing Summit was announced by Flutter and the BHA back in October 2025, with York Racecourse chosen as the venue for the event, while Racecourse Media Group (RMG) and ClimbUK backed the event.

The venue was later changed to London, where the event took place last week. Out of 100 startups which applied to join, 10 presented their solutions and products to an audience of betting and racing stakeholders in London last week.

Startups were asked to pitch ideas around horse welfare, education, the race day experience, and ‘behind the silks’ solutions, the latter meaning behind-the-scenes horseracing fan engagement solutions.

The 10 businesses included Sleip, which develops AI technology to detect lameness and pain; AWAG, the ‘Animal Welfare Assessment Grid’; Equitech Analytics, a wearable performance data insights tech firm; Konektt, an training yard; equine care management platform; and Stablfy, an equine health tracking platform.

These firms were joined by Theo Wealth, another wearable technology firm; E-Nano, which develops robot technology to measure track conditions; Raw Stadia, a sporting surface management and analysis system; Horsebox, an online platform and marketing place for shared ownership; and Fanbase, a news, content and information hub.

Flutter and the BHA hope that by addressing issues and challenges in the sport via technologies such as these, horseracing can win back more customers and secure its long-term sustainability. 

In all fairness to the sport, while its attendees were struggling for some time, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdowns, 2025 saw a reversal with H1 seeing a 5.1% year-over-year increase across 704 fixtures, totalling 2,430,225 racegoers.

The relationship between racing and betting was tested to an extent last year during the debate around taxation. Racing launched its own campaign, #AxeTheRacingTax, which drew criticism from the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC). The sport also distanced itself from casino and iGaming products to some extent.

This has not deterred Flutter from working with the sport, however, showing that betting and racing’s commercial and political interests still remain aligned – at least in the Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair parent firm’s case.

The duo plan to host another showcase event, this time at York Racecourse, later in the year.

Sebastian Butterworth, Strategic Racing Director for Flutter UKI said: “We have been delighted to work alongside the BHA on the Future of Racing programme, utilising the skills and experience of our internal Alpha Hub team in exploring the world of innovative and emerging technology.

He added: “I’d like to thank all those who attended the event. We are really looking forward to continuing the work with the BHA to progress the programme over the coming months and explore how the concepts we heard can come to life and help grow our sport.”

Digital technology continues to be a key focus for the BHA in 2026, and not just with regards to its Future of Racing partnership with Flutter. The organisation is continuing to work on the Racing Digital platform, for example, but the repeated delays around this project were thrust into the spotlight earlier this month.