OpenBet reports record Cheltenham Festival

OpenBet handled more than 25 million bets for customers including William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral and Sky Betting and Gaming during last week’s Cheltenham Festival, the company has revealed.

According to the sportsbook and gaming software supplier, the number of sports bets going through its platform peaked at 20,000 per minute, a 40% increase on last year’s Cheltenham, while mobile made up 63% of all bets placed.

In total, OpenBet processed 146 million transactions throughout the duration of four-day festival, making it the second busiest event of the year after the Grand National.

Speaking to eGaming Review, OpenBet chief executive Jeremy Thompson-Hill said the figures were down to a mix of its omni-channel strategy and handing customers the ability to have more control over their own front end.

“The omni-channel vision is making gaming more accessible and we can see that is bringing more people in but also retaining those players with more convenient ways to play,” Thompson-Hill said.

“And if you look at the OpenBet strategy, where we have tried to decouple the front end to try and let customers control and own that front window that is also paying off.

“Take Sky Bet, they’ve gone and built on top of OpenBet a mobile platform and their volumes are massively up this year,” he added.

Thompson-Hill said despite the large volumes last week had gone “very smoothly” and pointed to the fact that retail giant Amazon processed 3,840 order per minute on Black Friday.

Earlier this month OpenBet launched a recruitment drive in which it plans to add 10% to its headcount while last month the firm reported double-digit growth across the first six months of its financial year.