YouGov: Surveying the UK cricket betting landscape
Oliver Rowe looks at the popularity and demographics of cricket when it comes to online betting and whether marketers could do more to tap into the sports betting cohort in the UK
The cricket season is in full swing in the UK, so this column is providing an overview of the cricket betting landscape in the country.
To begin with, cricket is only the joint sixth-most popular summer sport in the UK with bettors (7%).
Looking specifically at online sports bettors, 11% say they bet cricket, which puts it well behind the likes of football (75%) and horseracing (58%), but it finds itself in the same league as the likes of golf (16%), boxing (14%), tennis (13%) and rugby (11%).
Cricket’s relatively low popularity as a betting sport comes as a slight surprise given that it is the joint second-most popular sport among online sports bettors in the UK.
One third of the members of this cohort say they follow cricket (33%), putting it behind only football. For marketers this could be the sign of a market waiting to be tapped into more incisively.
Who are the cricket bettors?
An overwhelming majority of online cricket bettors are men, with only one in 10 being women (89% versus 11%).
While horseracing leads the way in terms of the female share in the online betting pie (27%), even other sports like football (18%), rugby union (17%) and tennis (19%) fare markedly better than cricket in this regard.
Looking at age demographics, a fifth of online sports bettors who bet on cricket are aged 18-34. The middle-aged group (35-54) makes up nearly half of online cricket bettors (48%) while the representation of over-55s stands at just under a third of the overall pie (31%).
By contrast, rugby (26%), boxing (34%) and tennis (31%) feature a much bigger share of online bettors in the youngest age category. Cricket bettors are slightly likelier than bettors of most of the other sports to come from higher-income households.
Three in 10 online cricket bettors are from this tier, with that demographic featuring as strongly only among rugby bettors (31%).
How much is staked relative to other major sports?
Online cricket bettors are among the most likely to stake upwards of £100 on sports and fantasy sports bets each month, with a quarter of them indicating as much (25%).
The share of football bettors who spend as much is less than half that at 11%, and it isn’t much higher among horseracing bettors either (14%). Rugby bettors also trail in this regard (20%), while tennis bettors are just as likely to wager upwards of £100 on sports betting including fantasy sports each month.
For sports betting companies, this statistic should serve as further motivation to target a cricket audience and expand the base of cricket bettors.
Among cricket bettors, Sky Bet dominates the scene, with more than half of online cricket bettors saying they use it to place sports bets (52%).
While Sky Bet tends to be the top sportsbook among bettors of most sports, it ranks particularly high among online cricket bettors, surpassing usage rates among bettors of horseracing (45%), football (48%), rugby (46%) and tennis (48%).
This could be due to the high recognition of the Sky brand that has likely developed among cricket followers, given that Sky Sports has had exclusive access to broadcast rights of all major cricket in the UK since 2006.
Bet365 (46%), William Hill (40%), Paddy Power (37%) and Ladbrokes (36%) also command a sizeable share among cricket bettors.
Having worked for YouGov for over a decade, Oliver Rowe has advised companies including Tesco and Barclays on their reputation management.
He now brings that experience to a sector which includes the betting and gaming industry in his role as global sector head for leisure and entertainment.