Buddhism is considered more of a religion in the east. In the west, it's not. Credit goes to Chögyam Trungpa for this.

Well, there are two sides to Buddhists beliefs. One side is just the philosophy of a way to guide and live your life. The other side involves how the Buddha was chalenged by supernatural beings while sittign under the Bodhi Tree, which Ihtink ws added on after he died as well as other stories involvign supernatural events and pwers, with soem beign taken more seriously than others.

Anyway, all those stories involvign the supernatural beings or events move it into the religioncategory... if you believe ny of it.

while the buddha was a real person and did not claim to be a god, and is not considered a god, there is prayer involved in buddhism. @mordant has the better answer; i am just adding this one detail lol

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Belief in a deity is optional in a religion, although the exceptions are outliers. There are others, like Taoism. Scientology is another example -- although they don't prohibit non-conflicting deity-beliefs, they don't offer up any of their own.

Religion is an organized system of ritual and observance that claims to help adherents lead better, happier and/or more moral lives, and/or to avoid some form of suffering or punishment for misdeeds. It may or may not provide a deity, an afterlife (whether cyclical or sequential), eternal reward and/or punishment (Jehovah's Witnesses for example are annihilationists, so there's an afterlife only for True Believers), supernatural beings (which Buddhism has even if they're not full-fledged deities) and so forth.

Because religion is not defined by a belief in a deity.