17/09/2026
The Betfred St Leger Festival this year marked the 250th anniversary of the world's oldest Classic horse race: founded in 1776 at Doncaster, four years before the celebrated Epsom Derby, the St Leger is the centrepiece of the British racing season.
According to estimates from the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), the UK betting industry's trade body, approximately £8 million was wagered across the entire meeting on platforms without proper authorisation. For the main race alone, the estimated illicit flow exceeded £2 million. BGC Chief Executive Grainne Hurst stressed that major sporting events attract those who seek to exploit public enthusiasm in order to fuel circuits operating entirely outside any regulatory oversight.
A problem that knows no borders
In Italy, one of the most recent operations dates back to August 2025, when the Guardia di Finanza (Italy's financial police) in Viareggio (Lucca) dismantled a large-scale betting ring, estimated at over €50 million, that had been running since at least 2019. The clandestine system for collecting bets and paying out winnings operated in code via WhatsApp and also covered horse races.
The regulated market is not enough
The institutional response, in both the UK and Italy, tends to focus on defending the legal market as a bulwark against illegality. This is a wholly inadequate approach unless it is accompanied by genuine traceability of horses, rigorous oversight of ownership transfers, and systematic checks on activities straddling the official sector and informal circuits. Across the country, the activities of illegal bookmakers, which according to numerous investigations cited in the association Libera's Azzardomafie report are controlled by mafia clans, are compounded by the scourge of clandestine horse racing, which IHP has been denouncing for more than a decade. Even after leaving the official racing circuit, which is itself exposed to clandestine racing, horses continue to race illegally to generate yet more money.
Funding the official circuit without reforming the equine registry, without imposing real traceability, and without building a mandatory post-career protection system does not mean protecting horses: it means continuing to ignore the path that, in the worst cases, leads them from the racetrack to the clandestine slaughterhouse. Sources Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) https://bettingandgamingcouncil.com/ Betfred St Leger Festival / Doncaster Racecourse https://www.doncaster-racecourse.co.uk/