Oddschecker insights: September woes for bookies as industry margin dips to seven-month low

September marked the lowest implied industry margin since February on the back of a difficult run of sporting results.

The latest data from Oddschecker reported a “soft month” for operators in terms of revenue, as the Premier League favourites duly obliged across the board.

In fact, the drag on margin was compounded by one particularly poor day in the shape of Saturday 16 September.

Six of the seven Premier League favourites won, including Manchester City’s 3-1 win over West Ham and Spurs’ last-gasp victory against Sheffield United.

Additionally, the only non-favourite victory was Brighton’s win over Manchester United. However, that was still a popular choice with bettors due to United’s poor early season form and the Seagulls’ impressive recent rise.

Additionally, 21 goals were scored across the seven matches.

That resulted in accumulators and bet builders landing and the operators taking a hiding. Oddschecker estimated that it was the worst single day for the industry since the 2022 World Cup final.

The firm added it was likely to be the worst Saturday since the opening weekend of the 2021-22 season when six of the seven Premier League favourites kicked off with a win.

Elsewhere, Europe won the Ryder Cup on home soil at the end of September with viewing figures and interest soaring for the event.

Oddschecker detailed which bookmakers had managed to make the most gains in terms of clickshare for the three-day event compared to total 2023 golf clickshare to date.

Betfred came out on top having clocked 7.2% clickshare over the course of the tournament compared to 4.4% for golf in the year-to-date.

LiveScore Bet saw its clickshare on the tournament increase by 2.6 percentage points and Matchbook’s clickshare jumped by 2.3 percentage points.

Finally, Oddschecker revealed a “significant amount of interest” in the Rugby World Cup in September.

The tournament kicked off on 8 September with hosts France beating the All Blacks 27-13.

Oddschecker said rugby union was the fourth most clicked sport on its grids last month, marginally behind horseracing, football and golf.

The firm also detailed which countries had increased their chances of winning the tournament based on average implied percentage across all sportsbooks on the grid.

Ireland are the biggest movers, with their pre-tournament odds improving by 8.6 percentage points.

South Africa (2.9 percentage points), England (2.5 percentage points) and Wales (2.4 percentage points) have all been given better chances by the bookies.

At the other end of the scale, a poor showing from Australia so far has seen the Wallabies slip by seven percentage points.