Total commingled wagering on Saturday’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville and its blockbuster supporting card fell for the first time in five years, according to charts of the races, but a move to prime time for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks produced significant gains. Betting on the Derby itself fell 3 percent, to $215.97 million, while betting on the 14-race Derby card fell 1.8 percent, to $331.1 million, according to the charts. Because betting on the Derby accounts for two-thirds of the wagering on the entire card, a decline in betting on the race almost guarantees that betting on the card also will decline. While betting on the Derby and the Derby card failed to hit records for the first time since 2022, handle and ratings for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks, held in prime time for the first time, soared. Betting on the Oaks was up 29 percent to a record $29.2 million, while handle on the 13-race Oaks card jumped 20.4 percent, to a record $89 million. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. The move of the Oaks to prime time and to NBC itself, rather than one of its sister networks, produced stunning gains in average audience. The average viewership for the one-hour broadcast was 2.4 million viewers, a nearly eight-fold increase over the 304,000 average over the last three years on USA, and a four-fold jump over the previous record, set in 1997, when the race was broadcast on ESPN. The Derby broadcast itself, heavily cross-promoted by NBC on all of its properties and networks, also had a sizeable gain in viewership, with average audience jumping 11 percent over last year to 19.6 million, according to NBC. The broadcast, which ran from 2:30 p.m. Eastern to 7:30, had a peak audience of 24.4 million during the Derby. Still, the decline in betting on the Derby and its card represents an abrupt stop to five years of gains fueled by the explosive growth in sports wagering and Churchill’s relentless efforts to solidify the Derby’s standing as an evergreen American institution. Following a brutal dip due to the pandemic in 2020, when the Derby was run on the first Saturday in September, betting on the Derby rebounded to $153 million in 2021, with measurable gains each year until 2025, when it hit a record $222.60 million, an overall jump of 45.5 percent. This year’s Derby did have some unusual aspects that impacted betting. Great White, an outsider, was scratched just prior to the race, requiring refunds of every bet that included the horse just minutes before the race went off. And among the remaining 18 entrants, no horse had grabbed the public’s eye in any significant way. This year’s Derby was a wide-open race, with no horse going off at less than 5-1 and six horses going off between 5-1 and 9-1. The race was won by Golden Tempo at 23-1. The second choice, Renegade, finished second, followed by the longshot Ocelli, a maiden. The Derby win, place, and show pool – which has grown substantially over the past four years due to wagers from casual sports bettors – fell 6.8 percent to $114.21 million, a surprising reversal given the wide-open field. The exacta pool was down marginally to $29.98 million while the trifecta pool fell 4.2 percent to $34.09 million. The only single-race pool to show any gain over last year was the superfecta, up 4.34 percent. The pick six ending in the Derby, which had a mandatory payout and a $110,100 carryover, had handle of $2.88 million, up 43.5 percent over last year, the only multi-race bet ending in the Derby to show any significant growth. :: Access morning workout reports straight from the tracks and get an edge with DRF Clocker Reports Churchill introduced a number of new wagers for the spring meet, including a jackpot progressive bet requiring the selection of the first eight horses in order, with the bet paying out the whole pool only in the event of a single winning ticket. The bet, which had a $273,214 carryover going into the Derby, had handle of $955,859. No one had a winning ticket. Bets that required players to select either the odd-numbered horses or even-numbered horses drew less than $10,000 in each race prior to the 10th, whereas races after that drew pools in the $15,000 to $20,000 range. Head-to-head pools throughout the early card did not exceed $6,000 in any race, but a head-to-head bet offered for the Derby had handle of $135,256 (which was 0.06 percent of the total wagering on the race). :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.