Oddschecker insights: June leads to healthy margin as Betfred the political betting king
Latest data shows three-month average margin the highest since Q1 2021 while bets for Labour to win the general election proved to be the most popular across all markets last month
June saw the Oddschecker-implied industry margin land at its most operator-friendly three-month average since December 2020 to February 2021.
According to the latest data set from the firm, June saw a 31% year-on-year (YoY) rise in margin while the month marked a 54% rise against June 2022.
Despite a drop in margin following the conclusion of the Premier League and a shift to horseracing, Oddschecker reported operators are in a fine run of form.
Operators also saw a 133% YoY increase and a 50% month-on-month jump in registration activity, mainly driven by Euro 2024.
Registrations for the so-called ‘big seven’ – Betfair Sportsbook, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, Coral, William Hill, Sky Bet and bet365 – reached their highest level since March 2023.
Looking back on Euro 2024 ahead of the final on Sunday, 14 July, between England and Spain, Oddschecker said just 44% of favourites won in the group stages.
Additionally, 39% of group stage games ended in low-scoring draws, with just 2.25 goals per game at the tournament compared to 2.78 at Euro 2020.
This was coupled with underperforming stars in the shape of Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Cristiano Ronaldo, resulting in a boost to margins.
Elsewhere, with Labour taking a huge 412 seats at the general election on 4 July, Oddschecker data revealed Betfred was the clickshare king across the matrix.
Betfred took 14% of the general election betting clickshare, with Paddy Power close behind on 13% and William Hill nipping onto the podium with 10%.
Oddschecker noted popular markets, including specific constituency bets, resulted in the largest volume of political-related traffic ever on the site, surpassing the 2019 election and Tory leadership contest in 2022.
However, bets on main markets were down 20% compared to 2019 as constituency bets leapt 20%.
Labour was the top selection in sitewide betslip clicks in the ‘next government’ market, even ahead of England-related bets for Euro 2024.
In terms of top performers on the grid during June, bet365 saw a 4.5 percentage point increase in bet-share and Star Sports reported a 6.3 percentage point jump in clickshare.
BetVictor also had a strong June, with the BVGroup-owned firm seeing acquisition rate soar 245% versus May.
Virgin Bet had the best performing registration to first time depositor (FTD) pipeline last month at 89% compared to 58% as the site average.