Oddschecker H1 insights: Sky Bet loses football market share but gains in racing

Sky Bet lost more than 20% of its football market share on Oddschecker in H1 2019, but made a big leap forward in racing market share of around 36%.

The Stars Group-owned firm saw its football clickshare fall from 12% to 9.4% in the first six months of the year, down 22% on 2018, while racing clickshare climbed from 9.7% to 13.2%.

Oddschecker attributed the football drop-off to a widening overround from the operator, with only Paddy Power offering worse prices on the Oddschecker grid in H1.

The racing uptick was driven by the firm’s Cheltenham free-bet offer and friendly place terms, suggesting the operator is successfully diversifying away from its core football market.

Interestingly, the top six largest racing operators all saw their market share increase, suggesting tier-two operators are struggling, Oddschecker noted.

It was a different story in football where the market seemed to be flattening out, as only bet365 increased its market share among the top-five operators.

Oddschecker’s H2 covers January-June

Elsewhere, operators continued to increase Premier league overrounds, with an 18-19 season average at 104.1% vs 103.8% in 17-18.

In H1 specifically, there was a significant rise in overround as operators looked to counteract punter-friendly results.

In terms of operator pricing, Oddschecker noted: “bet365 continued to lead the way with their fairly aggressive and unwavering pricing attracting a growing and dominant share of attention on the 1×2 market.

“Marathon Bet continue to offer the tightest book, whilst Paddy Power managed to attract strong market share growth despite increasing their overround nearly 1pp from H1 to H2.”