Analysis: How bookies bet big on World Cup success

Sunday’s final between Germany and Argentina will bring to a close one of the most exciting World Cups in recent memory after a tournament packed full of controversy, spectacular goals, high-scoring games and penalty shoot-out drama.

From the high payout to punters after Germany’s 7-1 drubbing of hosts Brazil to the welcomed 0-0 draw between Argentina and the Netherlands, results have proven to be a mixed bag but the spike in turnover the tournament has brought will have most bookies licking their lips.

Off the pitch, the World Cup may well be remembered for an outbreak of some of the most aggressive customer acquisition strategies the sports betting market has seen, particularly in the shape of enhanced price offers and money back specials.

The fight for new customers kicked off way before the tournament’s first game, with Betfair, Coral, 888, Titanbet, Betfred and William Hill some of the main protagonists.

One extreme example was Coral’s ‘Even Money on Brazil Wearing Yellow in the Opening Game’ for new customers ““ a bet with its outcome already decided. Throwing money away? Perhaps, but customers signed up in droves.

“We also offered a strong trading offer to all customers, ‘Money Back On Losing Outright Bets if Argentina or Brazil Win The World Cup’, up to a value of £25 and returned as a free bet, which was hugely popular and may still be hugely costly if Lionel Messi inspires Argentina to victory on Sunday,” Simon Clare, PR director at Coral, said.

Enhanced pricing is now recognised as a key customer acquisition tool and is expected to be repeated once the new domestic season kicks off, however, the focus will now be on maximising the life time values of those first time punters.

“The World Cup itself has been incredible,” Clare said. “As you’d expect from a 28-day tournament there have been good days and bad days in terms of results, but throughout online and mobile turnover has been stellar, and a host of draws after 90 minutes and 0-0 results in the knockout stages has delivered excellent returns at a gross win level too,” he added.

Titanbet’s head of UK sportsbook Russell Yershon says he expects the World Cup final to produce the firm’s record daily turnover, which was broken by both of this week’s semi-finals. Turnover at the start of the tournament, he said, remained steady across all games as punters spread the bets across multiple group games on any given match day.

“Germany against Algeria sparked a lot of interest earlier on in the tournament, as did Spain versus Chile, but we’re really excited about the turnover this week and on Sunday,” he said.

New frontiers

World Cup 2014 will be seen as the first where mobile sportsbook found its feet, as bookies spoken to by eGR suggest mobile turnover as a percentage of overall bets has increased during the past month.

Mobile products and marketing was a key battleground during the month-long tournament and many operators have found huge success in this channel, from BetVictor’s SpinCast app to Ladbrokes’ updated product with new World Cup features.

“We launched our World Cup Centre the week before it all kicked off and we’ve found our mobile customers spending much more time on the platform and significantly increasing their propensity to bet,” David Williams, head of consumer PR, said.

Meanwhile BetVictor said its SpinCast bet, which is based on a slots-style bet selection process, was the fifth most popular market, matching the popularity of first player to score betting. The operator has seen 70% of World Cup bets placed via a mobile device – and although down on early estimates of 80%, it still represented “a very strong swing towards mobile and tablets”.

Social media has also played a huge part in bookies’ marketing. Yershon said Titanbet increased its Twitter followers by 30-40% during the tournament, primarily to its ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign in which it sent one lucky customer on an all-expenses paid trip to Brazil to cover the action.

An early farewell

For UK bookmakers England’s early exit from the tournament to the hands of Uruguay had a significant impact on revenues during the latter stages of the tournament.

William Hill offered odds on England to beat Uruguay at 4/5 and in total well over £5.5m was staked by punters from nearly 788,000 bets.

Newly launched 666Bet made the most of England’s poor chances of success by offering a staggering 1966-1 on them winning the tournament to the first 2,000 customers, but its money was arguably always safe.

However, Ladbrokes said it would have benefited significantly if England had made it into the last 16 due to a higher level of public interest after the group stage games.

“If we were being greedy we’d have preferred England to limp through to the knock-out stages,” Williams said.

“It’s an unavoidable truth that an early England exit makes it harder to sustain some of the betting interest for infrequent customers that’s beyond our control,” he added.

All eyes on Sunday

The key for all operators is now to keep hold of some of the new customers they have fought so hard to attract. TitanBet’s Yershon says the bookie is rolling out ‘multiple bet’ offers, giving punters a free bet later this month if they wager on both the semi-final and final of the World Cup, in order to keep them coming back for more.

Although for others, a lot still rests on the final, with BetVictor hoping Germany became the first European side to win a World Cup in South America. “It’s been fairly level so far with the last game likely to decide the overall landscape; Argentina being a woeful result for the firm,” a spokesperson for BetVictor said.

With Lionel Messi offered at 11/8 to win the Golden Ball going into the tournament, as well as Argentina being one of the favourites to win the World Cup, bookies will be keeping their fingers crossed for a 0-0 draw after 90 minutes and for Germany to lift the trophy.