Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

Boasting competitive equine action spread across 28 races with the crème de la crème of National Hunt racing, the annual Cheltenham Festival is an undisputed highlight in the sporting calendar. For UK-facing bookmakers, these four days in March continue to be one of the biggest events of the year in terms of turnover, as well as a convenient vehicle for acquiring new customers and re-activating dormant accounts. So, unsurprisingly, the layers habitually deploy a marketing blitzkrieg, bombarding jump racing’s cognoscente and recreational punters with a bewildering array of money-back promotions, hyper-inflated odds and other headline-grabbing offers.

Much like the ‘jungle’ of the on-course betting ring, the online arena tends to be a cutthroat struggle for share of wallet. But with racing punters now automatically expecting perks like non-runner no bet (NRNB) in the weeks preceding the festival and best odds guaranteed (BOG), sportsbooks have to go that extra mile with their carrots, or inducements, dangled under gamblers’ noses. This year, William Hill kicked off proceedings with a head-turning promotion for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the first race on the opening day, with ‘double your winnings’ (paid in cash up to £100) on win and each-way bets.

High street and online rival Ladbrokes also doubled winnings on the curtain raiser, however the additional winnings were paid as free bets up to £50. As it turned out, 7/4 favourite Getabird finished tailed off but the first and second home – Summerville Boy and Kalashnikov – were both each-way fancies at 9/1 and 5/1 respectively, so Hills’ standout offer probably proved costly in terms of the result alone. More broadly, it was a smart play.

Bookmakers know this is the racing event for turnover and acquisition and, as ever, the focus on day one, race one was to get the accounts opened and the money in the virtual satchel,” says Matt Bisogno, chair of the Horseracing Bettors Forum and owner of racing information site geegeez.co.uk.

Acutely aware of the importance of keeping punters on the hook from the outset, Sky Bet was back with its offer of money back as a free bet if your horse lost in the first race (maximum stake £20). This applied to all four days of the festival. The Leeds-based operator hammered home its promotion by hiring racing pundit Jim McGrath for a prominent TV ad. The suited-and-booted ex-Timeform chairman declared there was no offer like it as rapper Kanye West’s track Black Skinhead boomed in the background.

Meanwhile, Betway went a step further by returning stakes up to £10 as free bets if your selection didn’t cross the finishing line in front in the first and last races across all four days. “Our offer definitely wasn’t the most extreme in the market‑place, but it’s one that we have tried before and has worked really well,” says CEO Anthony Werkman. “It brings customers in for the first race and it keeps them engaged through the day. We had very good acquisition numbers and our existing customers really engaged with us and enjoyed the offering.”

Keep your powder dry

It was interesting to note that some firms that have gone gung-ho on the Supreme in previous years, spread their offers and concessions around a bit more this year. Coral offered money back as a free bet up to £25 on fallers in every race, while Paddy Power, whose modus operandi is its money-back specials, returned losing stakes (as a free bet up to £10) on Tuesday’s seven races if the SP favourite landed the spoils.

The Irish operator also jumped on the bandwagon of offering massive prices on hot favourites – a UA tactic routinely deployed by the likes of Ladbrokes Coral Group to reel in casual punters. This included Paddy Power going 28/1 about odds-on shot Apples Jade for the Mares’ Hurdle.

Coral upped the ante with 50/1 for Buveur D’Air in the Champion Hurdle and Ladbrokes also went 50/1 for Champion Chase favourite Altior. Not to be outdone, Paddy Power Betfair offered odds of 66/1 for Un De Sceaux in the Ryanair Chase. Yet the T&Cs revealed that these price boosts were only available to new customers, while the maximum stake was just £1 and enhanced winnings were paid in free bets. There’s always a catch. “The headline offer is certainly striking if you’re a newbie or occasional punter,” says Bisogno, “but I wonder what the lifetime value of customers acquired in such a way – certainly in terms of the racebook – actually is.”

These price boosts, as well as various sign-up offers and deposit bonuses, were trumpeted over at price comparison portal Oddschecker where certain operators bought unavoidable takeover ads on the festival pages. This strategy bore fruit according to Oddschecker’s George Elek.

“As ever, the focus on day one, race one was to get the accounts opened and the money in the virtual satchel” – Matt Bisogno, Horseracing Bettors Forum

“The operators who had the most customer clicks on site had purchased ‘takeovers’ during the week, showing that paid campaigns are still the most effective in driving traffic to promotions,” he says. “These partners – William Hill, Lad­brokes Coral and Paddy Power Betfair – also greatly benefited in ‘betslip click market share’ as well.”

Elsewhere, paying out on additional places in big races remained a compelling offer, not least because it’s a clear-cut bonus rather than a promotion with an “obstacle course of terms and conditions hoops”, as Bisogno puts it.

Coral went seven places in the competitive race it always sponsors on the Wednesday, the Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, while Sky Bet’s other standout promotion was saved for Friday’s Gold Cup when the firm paid five places on the showpiece race. This trumped all those online operators and on-course bookmakers paying out on the first three past the post, although the bean counters at Sky Bet probably winced when the offer was first mooted.

Rein it in

While the tussle for the punter’s pound was predictably fierce, opinion seemed divided on whether it was a more subdued affair compared with the bun fights in recent years. Sister magazine EGR Intel ran a Twitter poll on whether bookmakers went overboard with offers or whether they had learnt their lessons from the past. The result was split 53-47% in favour of lessons learnt. “As expected, the festival was hugely competitive with a number of offers out there and didn’t look any more restrained,” opines William Hill’s Joe Crilly.

Two years ago, the promotions and loss-leaders reached fever pitch, prompting Ladbrokes CEO Jim Mullen to slam rivals for “losing their minds” with “race-to-the-bottom offers”. The situation was compounded by a string of favourites obliging, resulting in estimated losses of £60m across the sector. It truly was a bookmaking bloodbath.

A more considered and circumspect approach to offers seemed to take hold in 2017. “Despite there being fewer offers from bookmakers [this year], the trend towards massive odds enhancements and ‘through-the-card’ offers both proved most popular,” Elek notes. Meanwhile, Werkman says: “I think there was a healthy realism coming to these big festivals that handing out huge amounts in bonuses and free cash is expensive, and it does impact the bottom line. Sportsbook operators need to be aware of this and do their maths carefully.”

In the meantime, the industry’s attention moves from Cheltenham’s Prestbury Park to Aintree for its three-day meeting in April, culminating in the biggest betting race of the year – the Grand National. And it’s an odds-on certainty the bookmakers will be hawking yet another panoply of temping offers.