PETA Urges TAB to Include Odds Of Horse Death on Melbourne Cup Betting Slips

26.10.2026

Melbourne – Ahead of the Melbourne Cup, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA, has urged betting site TAB to make gambling on the race “more accurate and transparent” by including the odds that a horse will die during the race.

“The Melbourne Cup is the disgrace that stops the nation,” says PETA Executive Agent Mimi Bekhechi. “Horses are always at risk when they’re whipped into running at breakneck speed with humans on their backs. PETA calculates, based on fatality statistics, that the decimal odds of a fatality across the four days of the Melbourne Cup Carnival are around 6.0, or 5:1. Punters should be reminded that they’re gambling with animals’ lives”.

Since 2013, 6 horses have died in the Melbourne Cup; 7 on Cup Day. While Melbourne Cup is one of Australia’s best-known races, an average of 2 horses die every day on Australian tracks, with a record 175 horses dying in the past racing year. Fractures, head trauma, and heart attacks are common, with many injuries due to horses being pushed too hard and raced too young, before their skeletons properly form. 

In its letter, available here, PETA argues that “It’s only fair to horses that anyone betting on the Melbourne Cup is aware of all the potential outcomes of a race, including that horses commonly suffer catastrophic injuries, pulmonary bleeding, falls, deaths, and post-race euthanasia.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a horse is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au and follow PETA on Facebook and Instagram.

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