Poll: Have the bookies gone overboard with their Cheltenham offers?
Could this year’s acquisition efforts see a repeat of the ‘bloodbath’ of 2016?
This Tuesday sees the return of the ‘greatest show on turf’, as punters and bookies make their annual pilgrimage to Prestbury Park in Cheltenham.
Ladbrokes estimated last year around £300m changes hands during the four-day festival, making it one of the most important events of the year for bookies.
It means the pressure is on to acquire customers, and there will undoubtedly have been battles between marketing departments and trading teams in the build up to the festival.
The cautionary tale of course is 2016 where bookmakers lost around £60m after a string of favourites dotting up, combined with “unsustainable” offers that “abandoned bookmaking principles,” according to Lads Coral CEO Jim Mullen.
The damage could have been even worse had Annie Power not fallen at the last in the Mares’ Hurdle.
Bede Gaming chairman Joe Saumarez Smith said of the race: “I’ve talked to enough chief executives and heads of trading about that race who shake their heads and say something along the lines of “I wouldn’t be in this job if Annie had won” to know how much of a swing that result was. Far, far worse than was ever publicly stated.”
The bookies duly showed some more caution in 2017, but have those losses in 2016 been forgotten about this year?
Sky Bet, for example, is offering money back as a free bet on all losers in the first race, while bet365 is best price on every horse for every race on ITV, along with a free bet offer for backing winners above 4/1, and enhanced each way terms.
Betway is also going the Sky Bet route with money back on losers in the first and the last race of the day, while Paddys is money back on all day one losers if the favourite wins the race.
That said, Ladbrokes and Coral are more restrained, with free bet offers on the opening race of day one, while the marketing chatter around the festival does seem to be a little more muted than recent years.
With that in mind, are the bookies opening themselves to another disaster if the results go against them this year?
Have your say below:
Poll: Have the bookies gone overboard with their Cheltenham offers this year, or have they learnt their lessons from the past? https://t.co/Fw2pxa6LWJ …
— EGR Global (@EGRIntel) March 12, 2018