Bet on Horseracing Wagering

In 1978 the United States Congress passed the Interstate Horseracing Act IHA permitting horserace tracks to televise their horseraces to off track locations for wagering, like the nine satellite wagering facilities in Virginia. Prior to the IHA it was illegal to do so because the federal Wire Act prohibits interstate transmission of bets on horserace wagers. Bet on Horseracing Wagering. The IHA was amended in 2000 to allow bet on horserace wagering at home on horseraces, either by phone or the internet, through personal credit accounts with companies like TVG Horseracing, XpressBet and PhoneBet, all of which do business in Virginia. Last year 88% of the nearly $15 billion bet on horseraces in the United States horse races was wagered off track courtesy of the IHA. Bet on Horseracing Wagering. That handle in turn funded over a billion dollars in purses. None of that explosive growth was foreseen in 1978, and certainly not the ever increasing amount (now about 15%) being wagered online. Horseracing as we know it today cannot exist without the IHA.