THE B2B CHELTENHAM REVIEW

Press Box PR Managing Director Alex Donohue and Press Box PR Director Jack Mansell speak to Gambling Insider Editor Tim Poole about this year’s Cheltenham Festival, how bookmakers fared and future aspirations for horseracing’s showpiece event

Overall, did operators have a good or bad Cheltenham Festival?

Alex Donohue: I think they had a great Cheltenham. I’ve got a couple of statistics here, for which I must credit Regulus Partners as the source. But it looks like the bookies had a great Cheltenham overround, which was up 16%. Margins were up and I think that’s down to the field sizes. We had 444 runners this year, compared to 405 last year. That means the average field size was 15.9, nearly 16. Simplistic bookmaking mathematics suggests the bigger the field size, the more overround, the more margin there is and the better that would be for bookmakers in the long term.

Results were better than they have been in previous years: there were eight winning favourites from 28 races, down from 12. I think it’s fair to say that bettors generally didn’t have a great Festival. It looked like a pretty torrid run of results in the middle of the week. I think on Tuesday there were a fair few punter-friendly horses that went in, Wednesday was okay and, on Thursday, the punters definitely drew a blank. On Gold Cup day, although the favourite did win the Gold Cup, there were a couple of results that went more in favour of the bookmaker. So, from looking at the statistics I have here, it looks like it was a pretty profitable Cheltenham.

Anecdotally, speaking to a couple of the bookmakers and affiliates we’re close to, it sounds like there was a real strong uptake of betting interest from recreational customers and people that don’t normally bet on horseracing. This is a really key thing for Cheltenham being a shop window for the sport. Average stakes, meanwhile, were pretty healthy; I think there was some suspicion that stakes might be declining a little bit, possibly due to cost of living, possibly due to people wanting to have a bet on more of the races and spread their entertainment value around. But it looks like the bookmakers did well, margin-wise and also did really well in terms of attracting a new audience coming to bet on horseracing – which stands the sport in great stead for the future.

Yes, on the Friday, I do remember the 66-1 shot that triumphed, which was definitely one of the more unexpected results...

AD: If you hadn’t backed the winner of the Gold Cup and were looking to try and redeem yourself in the Foxhunters Chase, I don’t think many people were able to use that to their advantage when the 66-1 shot came in. But that’s what makes Cheltenham brilliant. It’s the biggest and best horses – but of course, they don’t always win. I think the unpredictability and sporting drama is what makes it such an appealing sporting event, and therefore betting event. If all the big horses turned up and won every single time, we wouldn’t get these big field sizes because the others wouldn’t want to come and give it a go. And it’s these big field sizes that ultimately make it an entertaining proposition and more profitable for the industry as well. So long may that continue.

Do you have any insights into brands that did particularly better than others, or some that weren’t quite as profitable as some of their competitors?

AD: It’ll be interesting to see what comes out in the wash now in the quarterly reports and the varying statements in the City, thereafter, for some of the bigger listed groups. Some of the groups that have already reported post-Cheltenham have reiterated what I mentioned there that the numbers were healthy: lots of the factors they look for in terms of cross-selling the sport as a betting opportunity to new audiences are pretty healthy, as well. Generally speaking, if the bigger firms are having a good Cheltenham, everyone will mostly have a good Cheltenham, unless anyone makes some sort of misjudged marketing offers. But that’s another point to make. Actually, in previous years, Cheltenham seemed a bit of a race to the bottom in terms of marketing offers. Bookmakers were giving too much away in a bid to attract customers. This year, you saw the industry collectively rein that in and there weren’t as many generous bonuses – without seeming to dampen the uptake. That, of course, is great news for operators, marketing department budgets and margins. They don’t feel like they have to give so much away to get people interested in betting on Cheltenham.

So a positive, profitable Cheltenham for operators – which isn’t always the case... But even if bookmakers don’t necessarily make money at Cheltenham, the marketing draw can bring customers in for the rest of the year. Was that very much the case this year, with the added bonus that operators were in the red?

Jack Mansell: I think it’s very encouraging, Tim, to see that there is growing cut-through for the sport into the mainstream. That’s got to be good, not just for betting operators, but also for the sport’s long-term prosperity. It’s raising the eternal problem of how you capitalise on the interest the Festival provides and creating either repeat customers from a betting point of view, or repeat spectators coming to the course. Clearly it’s incumbent upon Cheltenham as a showpiece fixture in the calendar to deliver on both those fronts. The early indications are that it certainly has from a betting point of view.

And time will indeed tell, now that we’re out of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, as to whether we can capitalise on this audience. But seeing Rachael Blackmore on the front pages and on the evening news can only be a good thing for the marketing of the sport – for the benefit of everybody.

Given what you’ve both said here, is it fair to say Cheltenham has succeeded in appealing to a wider audience this year?

JM: Yes, I think credit must go to the Jockey Club and the authorities at Cheltenham for doing all they can to widen the interest in the sport. They took a bit of a risk at the start of the week with that DJ Cuddles Roar Remix, which for the traditionalists probably goes against the grain slightly. But I’m a great believer that racing needs to try new things, and test and learn. Clearly, those sorts of initiatives did generate lots of coverage outside the sport, which can only be a good thing for raising awareness. I think credit must also go to the authorities for making the brave call to improve the customer experience. Because I know first-hand from working in a racecourse that really the bottom-line requirement is to get punters through the door, and that customer experiences tend to have been overlooked for racing fans for quite a long time. I think clearly limiting the numbers on each day has helped alleviate a lot of the issues Cheltenham was facing, with long queues for bars, long queues to get in and out of the racecourse, etc. So, I think what we have to keep in mind is discretionary spend for everybody right now is tight and so we need value for money for those who attend. It must be seen to be driving value for them and I think Cheltenham in its approach has attempted to appeal to the masses... but also given them a customer experience they would expect, whether they’re going for a day at the races or a day at Premier League football.