Oddschecker insights: ‘Big 7’ lose market share at Cheltenham
This year’s Cheltenham Festival sees a more diverse sportsbook market with 20 firms taking at least 1% of clicks
The so-called ‘Big 7’ sportsbooks in the UK market lost approximately 8 percentage points (pp) of market share at this year’s Cheltenham Festival, according to new Oddschecker data.
The share of bet slip clicks garnered by the top-seven firms fell from more than 70% to 63.27%, with bet365 seeing its share of clicks drop 4.2pp year-on-year, although it continued to lead the market.
In a similar vein, the number of firms taking at least 1% of click share rose to 20, up from 13 last year.
Oddschecker said the figures were reflective of punters willingness to take the best price available, regardless of “above the line clout”.
The biggest gainers in click share were Unibet (+2.1pp), Betfair Sportsbook (+1.9pp) and Marathon (+1.8pp).
“Unibet undoubtedly benefitted from picking up a large chunk of Stan James traffic whilst Betfair Sportsbook and Marathonbet are both new entrants to Oddschecker’s API family,” the price comparison site noted.
On pricing, Kambi-powered books 888 and Unibet offered the tightest overall overrounds and the most competitive pricing of the favourites throughout the week.
Sky Bet finished second in the same category, in contrast to its Premier League pricing where its 1×2 overrounds have been the largest tracked by Oddschecker this season.
Elsewhere Betfred topped the acquisition table with its Bet £10 Get £50 offer which ran throughout the week, while William Hill came in second thanks to its Day One ‘through the card’ offer (Bet £20 on the Supreme and get a £10 Free Bet on all other races that day).