Kindred Group’s racing chief outlines the challenges of the Cheltenham Festival

Kindred Group’s head of UK horseracing, Ed Nicholson, has said the “commercial reality” of the industry has fundamentally shifted the way operators approach the Cheltenham Festival.

Writing in a blog post on the Kindred website ahead of National Hunt racing’s annual spectacle next week, Nicholson said the strategy around the sport’s flagship event has narrowed in recent years.

He noted that the key factor for firms in the current climate is to drive brand recognition and engage with existing and lapsed customers rather than using the festival as a major acquisition tool.

It is estimated that £500m will be bet on the 28 races over the four-day event at Prestbury Park, with 25 of those historically in the top 40 highest-turnover horseraces of the year. An estimated four million bets were placed across the industry on the Cheltenham Gold Cup alone in 2022, Nicholson highlighted.

However, the industry veteran said the growing competition and avalanche of promotions had limited operators’ chances of onboarding new customers.

He said: “In my 30 years of working in the industry, the Cheltenham Festival offers betting companies something different.

“Back in the day, it was a chance to acquire new customers and to make profits, and although both are obviously hoped-for objectives now as they were back then, there is more of a commercial reality that with time has come competition, and with that competition has come squeezed margins as companies offer promotions to get targeted audiences to use their site rather than a competitor.

“So, the Cheltenham Festival now offers operators the opportunity for brand recognition and to communicate with their existing and lapsed customers,” he added.

Nicholson said the festival represented the “most important racing week of the year” and highlighted that while the fierce competition was tough, he remained confident in Kindred’s ability to succeed.

He continued: “Our marketing and product teams have been working for months putting forward campaigns that will be delivered to existing, lapsed and hopefully many new customers from the Saturday before the festival starts and then each day until the final Friday.”

This will include television adverts, social media plans, print adverts and online digital banners for the group’s flagship Unibet brand.