LONDON – 9th March 2016 – Worldpay, a global leader in payments, is predicting that online bookmakers will experience up to a 60% increase in turnover this week as British punters hope for a re-run of last years’ record-breaking Cheltenham Festival.
A string of winning favourites at the 2016 Festival saw the betting industry suffer losses of more than £60m, the worst in living memory. But figures from Worldpay show that bookies have an excellent opportunity of recouping their losses if last year’s betting patterns are repeated.
Overall, last year’s Cheltenham Festival saw 39% more online betting transactions compared to the week prior to the festival. The Gold Cup proved to be the most popular day for betting, seeing 57% more transactions than the previous week and an astonishing 66% more bets than the fortnight prior. The figures help to explain the large-scale losses suffered by the industry at last year’s event, and bookmakers will hope to avoid a similar situation in 2017.
James McGurn, VP Growth – Digital Content & Gaming, at Worldpay said: “The Cheltenham Festival is the jewel in the crown of National Hunt racing, but bookies will be hoping for a much more successful year in 2017 following last year’s losses.
“The good news for the industry is that last year online gambling firms saw a 39% rise in turnover during the week of the Festival compared with the previous fortnight, and if betting patterns this year are similar they can look forward to average bet values increasing by 19% as punters go large on the big races. The Gold Cup will prove to be the moment of truth: last year, bookies turned over a whopping 62% more versus the same day two weeks prior. It just depends, of course, on the right nags romping home.
“In 2015-16 online gambling operators generated £4.5 billion in gross gambling yield*, powered to a large extent by mobile technology which has made it easier than ever for casual gamblers to have a flutter on the gee-gees – or any other sport, for that matter. In a couple of weeks we’ll see whether this year’s Cheltenham Festival was a winner for the gambling industry; but whatever happens we can be sure that there will be no shortage of bets from both casual and committed punters.”
* Source: UK Gambling Commission Industry Statistics, 24th November 2016
For more information please contact:
The Worldpay eCommerce Press Office: [email protected]
About the data:
Figures quoted are according to global eCommerce payment transactional data for Worldpay’s regulated gambling customers during February-March 2016, which include more than 150 of the biggest names in regulated gambling industry.
About Worldpay
Worldpay is a leading payments company with global reach. We provide an extensive range of technology-led payment products and services to over 400,000 customers, enabling their businesses to grow and prosper. We manage the increasing complexity of the payments landscape for our customers, allowing them to accept the widest range of payment types around the world.
Using our network and technology, we are able to process payments from geographies covering 99% of global GDP, across 146 countries and 126 currencies. We help our customers to accept more than 300 different payment types, by providing an end-to-end service including acquiring, treasury, gateway, alternative payments and risk management, all via a single integration to Worldpay.
Worldpay makes global payments simple for many of the world’s leading organisations.
