OpenBet Wagers Reach New Highs for Grand National
Published April 15, 2015 by Lee R
Online horse racing is experiencing a huge upswell in online betting and mobile activity.
OpenBet has achieved record-setting success with its Grand National.
Winning Figures
The popular platform provider handled a total of a whopping 19.3 million sports bets this weekend across its channels in the National Hunt. The supplier saw the busiest activity of the year in the final 24-hour build-up to the race, topping out at 45,000 bets per minute for a total of 54m account transactions made. The frenzy represented a 24 per cent increase from the 2014 race.
Mobile Activity Skyrockets
Predictably, there was a substantial jump in mobile device placement as well, as the 2015 Grand National received almost 63 per cent of all remote bets via the mobile, up a super-healthy 54 per cent in the previous year.
OpenBet chief executive Jeremy Thompson-Hill was pleased to report how well the platform handled the shift, as all wagers were “seamlessly” placed “without any downtime” for the event won by Many Clouds.
Keeping Pace
The record-setting Grand National event came on the spurs of an also successful Cheltenham Festival, whose 25m sports bets handled and 146m account transactions represented robust figures for the four day duration.
Worldpay global payment processor reported a 12.6 percent rise in year-on-year figures, with an 83.6 per cent for a typical day in April. The total value of these transactions rose 20.3 percent from 2014.
WorldPay VP Alan Watson called the Grand National the biggest race event ever for UK online bookies, citing the ease of use and speed of online betting as the biggest draws for existing and new punters.
Sign of the Times
The event demonstrates how online sports betting for horse racing is one of the leading areas of expansion for online wager activity in general, and can drive further adaptation of all online gambling ad wager-based activity. Sponsors and iGaming providers would do well to take note.
