Online growth powers record Grand National figures
Year's biggest betting event sees operators process 13% more bets than 2014 and dodge £30m bullet
Bookmakers were left celebrating on Saturday after avoiding a £30m pay out for what turned out to be a record-breaking Grand National weekend.
Operators breathed a huge sigh of relief when AP McCoy failed to win on well-backed favourite Shutthefrontdoor, while 25/1 winner Many Clouds ensured the industry enjoyed a profitable day.
Ladbrokes head of consumer PR David Williams described the outcome “as another cracking Grand National for us” with the potential £30m loss transformed into a £30m “windfall”.
“We were cheering every runner apart from Shutthefrontdoor,” Williams said. “He was the only one we were sweating about and when he started to tire we were able to relax.”
Aside from the result, strong performances online and on mobile ensured bookmakers made the most of what is traditionally the busiest betting day of the year.
Payments processor Worldpay said the number of transactions processed by Britain’s online bookmakers increased by 13% compared with last year’s Grand National.
And even more encouragingly, the total value of these transactions was up 20% on last year.
William Hill said it had good double digit growth online, and the group turnover of around £30m exceeded its pre-race expectations.
Coral reported the “biggest day we’ve ever had” online, while software supplier OpenBet said it handled 19.3 million sports bets on the day of the race.
At its peak on Saturday OpenBet, which counts William Hill, Paddy Power, Sky Betting and Gaming, Coral and Ladbrokes among its clients, was processing 45,000 bets-per-minute.
It also processed a total of 54 million account transactions, an increase of 24% from 12 months ago.
As expected, mobile proved a key battleground and OpenBet reported that an average of 63% of all remote bets placed were via mobile devices, up from 54% in 2014
“The Grand National is a critical event for our customers,” Jeremy Thompson-Hill, OpenBet CEO, said. “It places huge demands on our industry and once again we have shown that OpenBet has the ability to handle the most important events seamlessly.”
At Coral, PR director Simon Clare said an underlying shift to online helped the firm capitalise on the day.
“Our online business is growing so it was no surprise it was the biggest day we’ve ever had online,” Clare said. “It was a record breaking National but we knew it would be. We are growing at a really healthy rate and the turnover we took on the day exceeded expectations.”
Clare added that with more customers using online and mobile sites, it was important that things ran smoothly.
“Technically, the website and mobile sites performed perfectly throughout the whole day, and that’s a big deal. It is the biggest demand you’ll ever face so if you fall over you miss out on business and you damage your reputation,” he said.