All roads lead to Cheltenham
We're fast approaching one of the most important weeks for UK and Ireland-facing bookmakers says Matthew Glazier of Bettingpro.com.
Any bookmaker worth their salt knows that while Grand National day will see a record number of customers register an account, it’s the Cheltenham Festival which is far more important to the long-term growth of the business.
The Festival has never been more popular in the United Kingdom, with the four-day meeting at Prestbury Park representing a golden opportunity for bookmakers to not only generate a large volume of registrations but also quickly establish loyalty among new customers.
Paddy Power have been keen to steal a march on their competitors over the past couple of years, running a promotion centred on the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the first race of the Cheltenham Festival.
While the Irish firm will have been relieved that neither Cousin Vinny (2009) nor Dunguib (2010) managed to win the meeting’s opener, they will have also calculated that a mass pay-out to racing punters ahead of the Festival’s remaining 27 races was no bad thing.
This is a time where all the major bookmakers in the UK and Ireland battle it out for precious new accounts. While the going in Gloucestershire could be good, soft or heavy, the ground is always fertile for the bookies due to high quality races following one after another.
Bet365’s Channel 4/1 offer is therefore an effective way of not only getting new customers on board, but also encouraging repeat betting with the same firm. It works especially well at the Cheltenham Festival as the races are highly competitive and it’s unusual to see many short-priced winners.
Other bookmakers like to keep it simple and simply double, treble or even quadruple their new customer offer for Cheltenham Festival week. High street chains like Ladbrokes, William Hill and Coral are renowned for trying to have the biggest and best offer for a race meeting where winners are never easy to find.
You only have to cast your mind back twelve months and ponder on the inability of the ‘dead certs’ that were Dunguib, Go Native, Master Minded, Poquelin and Kauto Star to win their respective races to realise that the only banker is that the bookies will be filling their proverbial satchels.