What is a Race Night?
Race nights are effectively a small scale lottery run in a pub or club where 6-8 horse races are shown on a television. Each race features 8 horse with one of them obviously winning. Before each race the audience can buy "betting tickets" for their chosen horse, usually each ticket costs 50p or £1.
Is A Race Night Gambling?
In short, no. A race night is not gambling, the horse races a simply a means of choosing a random number between 1 and 8. Each horse has the same chance of winning, there is no form and no odds. You do not need a gambling license to run a fundraising race night. For more information see The Gambling Commission website.
Is a Race Night Hard To Organise?
If you plan your event properly then usually it is quite simple to organise a race night. You will need 3-4 volunteers to help on the night as well as a handful of people to help in the planning stages with things such as collecting race sponsorship, horse sponsorship and distributing posters. Most sports clubs and football teams have a ready supply of people who can help out without too much trouble.
How Long Does a Race Night Last?
You should allow approximately 20-25 minutes for each race. If your race night features 8 races then it would typically last about 3 hours. The races themselves last only for 2-3 minutes but you need 15 minutes between races to sell tickets and you also have to allow people time to buy drinks.
How Are The Races Shown?
Most race night suppliers will provide races on DVDs, these DVDs will either feature one race each or you can also get a single DVD with all 8 races on them. The reason for the single race DVDs is that you can shuffle the DVDs to make sure each race is chosen at random. The 8 race DVDs tend to pick a race randomly themselves.
How Much Does a Race Night Cost?
Race night prices vary wildly between suppliers, some charge £20 for an 8 race DVD whilst others charge £200. It is also possible to rent an entire package for approximately £500 which includes a projector hire, a compere and the full selection of race night resources.
How Much Can You Raise?
Largely the success of your fundraising event depends on how well it is organised and how many people turn up. On average a race night with 70 people in attendance can easily raise £1000 in an evening.