Cheltenham Set to Generate £1 Billion in Revenue
Posted by Harry Kane on Tuesday, May 10, 2022
The Cheltenham Festival remains one of the world’s most iconic race meetings, and one that’s home to an incredible array of Grade 1 races. These include the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which is the most valuable non-handicap race on these shores and one that offers a prize fund in excess of £600,000 in 2024.
Having commenced earlier this week, the 2024 Cheltenham Festival features an impressive 28 races across four action-packed days, while analysis of engagement levels and interest prior to the event suggests that the meeting is on track to generate a record £1 billion in wagers. This will translate into increased revenues for sportsbooks, with ante-post markets appearing to have captured the attention of punters nationwide.
Why is Cheltenham on Course for a Record Year in 2024?
The most recent findings have been uncovered and published by the online gambling aggregator freebets.ltd.uk, whose detailed report suggests that the Cheltenham Festival is poised to generate £1 in revenue this year. This is set to exceed all previous years, while freebets.ltd.uk is predicting that the meeting will be the biggest single betting event of 2024.
These findings are based the analysis of social engagement and new player signups, with a significant spike in traffic and interest being recorded in the lead up to the Cheltenham Festival. Further exploration has found that sportsbooks’ decisions to promote bespoke offers proactively has been a key driver of engagement, by incentivising punters to place ante post bets on a large scale.
2024 has certainly seen sportsbooks define and promote their Cheltenham offers and welcome bonuses much earlier when compared with previous years, primarily in order to successfully leverage a sporting event that draws in 250,000 spectators over four days of action. Similarly, there may also be a drive to recoup the losses accrued through 2020 and 2021, when the Cheltenham Festival was disrupted by Covid-19 and successive lockdowns.
Another key element has been the nature of Cheltenham-inspired promotions, which have been far more tailored and relevant to the event in recent years. For example, many operators are running enhanced odds promotions specifically for the Cheltenham Festival, while others have looked to incorporate additional placings for each-way bets.
These multi-layered and generous promotions also provide different types of insurance, to help minimise the risk of loss from a punter’s perspective. These include ‘faller’ and ‘acca’ insurance, the
former of which returns your stake if your selected runner fails to complete the race. Typically, the latter will refund your stake if all but one of your accumulator selections fail, with this type of wager usually requiring every pick to win if it’s to be successful.
These small but significant provisions create a much better risk-reward ratio for bettors, which in turn has helped to generate more interest in promotional offers and a much higher rate of participation over time. On a similar note, some promotions have included a ‘no runner, no bet’ option for the Cheltenham Festival, which returns ante post stakes if a selected horse subsequently pulls out ahead of a race.
Are There Any Other Factors in Play?
Another reason behind the surge in Cheltenham Festival betting is the increased enthusiasm being shown by younger punters. Certainly, sportsbooks have reported a sustained increase in betting activity within the 18-30 age group, with this largely being attributed to a recent rise in the number of social media influencers focused on horse racing.
Make no mistake; the prominence of horse racing influencers and vloggers on channels like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter has helped to generate huge amounts of interest among younger punters, especially around iconic events like the Cheltenham Festival. This type of meeting transcends the sport of horse racing, while actively reaching out to a new and casual customer base.
What’s more, social media verticals have helped to inform and educate younger fans while enabling them to communicate and share race predictions, which has undoubtedly contributed to increased sportsbook revenues ahead of the festival. So, just as social media and Reddit groups have helped to create a new generation of investors, they’ve also built a burgeoning community of young racing fans with money to spend.
Some experts have also suggested that the expected standard of racing at Cheltenham in 2024 is a key contributing factor. Of course, the Cheltenham Festival regularly brings together the UK’s best horses and trainers across a series of lucrative Grade 1 races, while the leading jockeys also attend and participate in their droves.
However, this year will see the standard of competitors improve further, thanks in no small part to the precocious nature of the six-year-old Constitution Hill. This gelding has already produced a stunning performance to win the Champion Hurdle on the first day of the festival, while his sixth career win in just six steeplechase outings earmarks him as an all-time great hurdler.
Elsewhere, races like the Ryanair Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup are set to feature some exceptional runners, from the stables of dominant trainers like Nicky Henderson (who trains Constitution Hill), Willie Mullins and Paul Nicholls. Overall, the quality of the field at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival has created a significant buzz around the event, with this having penetrated beyond the traditional boundaries of the sport.
The Bottom Line
As we can see, there are plenty of factors behind the rising popularity of the Cheltenham Festival in 2024, from the proactive and tailored nature of relevant sportsbook offers to the growing interest among younger punters. Of course, this years’ festival at Cheltenham is also poised to be one of the most exciting in history, creating far greater interest and media hype as a result.
But apart from banking a record £1 billion in revenue over the course of the festival, what else can sportsbooks take from Cheltenham 2024? Well, the development of multi-
layered and tailored bonuses continue to offer value in relation to specific events, while these offers available earlier also appears to have encouraged higher rates of engagement and participation.
At the same time, sportsbooks are clearly reaching out to a much younger audience in 2024. As a result, they may need to review their social media and wider marketing strategies going forward, in order to leverage influencers and promote high profile events to a whole new demographic of bettors.