Oddschecker insights: Bet365 retains Cheltenham Festival clickshare crown as William Hill closes the gap
Stoke-on-Trent-headquartered giant holds 6.9 percentage point lead on 888-owned operator as firms do battle at Prestbury Park
Bet365 retained its clickshare crown at the Cheltenham Festival despite William Hill closing the gap in the battle for punters, according to the latest Oddschecker data.
The online giant claimed 19.4% of total clickshare during the week, ahead of Hills with 12.5%.
The gap between the duo has shrunk since 2023, when it stood at 8.2 percentage points after bet365 ran away with a 23.9% clickshare.
Paddy Power retained its bronze medal position despite seeing its clickshare fall from 10.5% to 9.5% for the 2024 event.
BetMGM smashed into fourth place with 8.4% in clickshare on the back of a strong offer and a takeover sponsorship of the Oddschecker homepage on the Wednesday, the second day of the festival.
Other notable shifts include Sky Bet dropping from fourth to fifth, with clickshare falling from 9.2% in 2023 to 6.8% this year.
The Flutter-owned brand took the second-highest clickshare back in 2022 but has fallen behind its stablemate Paddy Power.
Unibet also had a strong turn of form, jumping from 11th to seventh place in the rankings after the Kindred Group operator saw its clickshare shoot up from 1% to 4.3%.
Bet365 was also the most generous operator over the week, with average overround landing at 125.3%, ahead of BetMGM and BetUK, both powered by Kambi, at 126.1%.
Sky Bet, while slipping in clickshare, did have the highest average places per race at 4.57, ahead of Betway and LiveScore Bet (4.07).
In the battle for the week’s best performing offer, BetMGM’s ‘Bet £10 get £60 in free bets’ came out on top, with William Hill’s ‘Bet £10 get £60 in bonuses’ taking second place.
Challenger brand CopyBet closed out the podium places with its ‘Bet £10 get £50 in free bets’ offer.
In terms of the Oddschecker itself, the site noted 608,000 unique users throughout the week, as well as 21,000 new customer signups.
The affiliate also reported 1.1 million betslip clicks and 150,000 betting actions, while the firm’s video and podcast portfolio delivered a combined three million impressions.
Oddschecker said: “Tuesday and Wednesday saw large red numbers for many UK operators as the likes of State Man, Lossiemouth and Ballyburn cruised home, representing popular picks among punters.
“Thursday provided some respite to bottom lines, with the less-fancied Monmiral (25/1) and Protektorat (17/2) offering bookies some salvation.
“As with previous years, Gold Cup Friday saw the biggest day for punter stakes, with amount staked per active also increasing as punters recycled their winnings and homed in on the Gold Cup. Overall, we saw an 11% decrease in stakes versus 2023.
“The opening Tuesday once again saw the largest new player acquisition day, while on-site bets and general traffic held up consistently well throughout the week.” the firm added.
On that point, six of the seven most-backed ante-post horses on the matrix landed wins in what Oddschecker labelled a “favourites’ paradise of a festival”.
Elsewhere, Flutter reported it processed 35 million bets on the festival during the week with more than 2.5 million active players across Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair.
Images source: Oddschecker