Oddschecker insights: Royal Ascot causes spike in acquisition and the best value on the US Open

Oddschecker’s latest data focusing on the month of June highlights Royal Ascot and the US Open golf. Punters were keen to get involved in the action at the prominent British racecourse and acquisition from the price comparison site understandably peaked on the first day of the festival. As acquisition declined through the week, turnover spiked as the curtain came down while stakes per actives increased with the firm explaining that they grew “as a result of recycling and the weekend impact”. Margin was up and down over the course of the week with bookies being battered on the Friday of the festival. A number of short priced winners on the penultimate day was a boon for punters with one customer at William Hill bagging £300,000 after going through the card.

The US Open took place on three of the same days as Royal Ascot, culminating in a Sunday that saw British player, Matt Fitzpatrick, claim victory by one stroke. As usual there was a scramble from operators to offer places and/or value. SportNation offered the best value to punters with an overround of 128% however only offered five places, which was the fewest places available, level with BetVictor, Parimatch and Unibet. At the other end of the scale, Betfair Sportsbook offered the most places going with 12 and also offered a competitive overround of just over 150%. Boylesports offered 11, while the amount of places offered by the most operators was eight. Sky Bet allowed punters to pick their own places (up to 12). Bet365 won the operator race for clickthroughs with an 18.4% market share. In the UK and Ireland, oddschecker had 1.4 million unique users for the month of June. As for the monthly movers, BETUK.com saw a 65% increase in acquisition month-on-month while bet365 was up 1.8pp on bet-share.