American iGaming platform innovator Scientific Games Corporation has reportedly announced that it saw an over 50% uplift in online horseracing bet volumes last week courtesy of the running of this year’s edition of the annual Cheltenham Festival.
The Las Vegas-headquartered innovator reportedly told European Gaming Media and Events that its OpenSports platform had handled record-breaking levels during the four-day horseracing extravaganza for some of the world’s most prestigious online sportsbook operators including the likes of Flutter Entertainment, William Hill and Entain. The firm moreover purportedly detailed that this high level of activity came as many land-based sportsbetting shops across Europe remain shuttered due to the ongoing threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
Consistent control:
Scientific Games Corporation reportedly explained that its operating partners had experienced 100% stability from its OpenSports platform throughout the Cheltenham Festival with its British clients having taken close to 70 million horseracing bets, which represented an increase of 53% year-on-year. It also purportedly asserted that the 470 million account transactions it handled during the four days of the behind-closed-doors event equated to a swell of 44% with one unidentified partner having processing a peak of over 34,000 wagers every minute.
Keith O’Loughlin serves as Sportsbook Senior Vice-President for Scientific Games Corporation’s SG Digital subordinate and he reportedly proclaimed that these figures ‘demonstrate the power of our platform’ with its reliability and scalability providing ‘high-level performance across one of the biggest sporting events’. The executive furthermore purportedly stated that total online stakes during this year’s Cheltenham Festival had grown by 34% year-on-year although the average win and each-way ante had remained ‘largely consistent’ at about £7.50 ($10.40).
O’Loughlin reportedly declared…
“Despite the significant increase in activity, it was very much business as usual as our team and technology coped under the huge demand from bettors. Our job is to give our operator partners the confidence that they can deliver a great service and grow their business without the worry of system downtime.”
In related news and European Gaming Media and Events used a second story to report that the online sportsbetting exchange at Smarkets.com last week processed approximately £210 million ($291 million) in wagers tied to the Cheltenham Festival. The domain purportedly revealed that this activity seen by its core service and SBK wagering app equated to a rise of 59% year-on-year and was some 40% higher than the previous record of £151 million ($209 million) set in 2019.
Overall optimism:
Jason Trost is the Chief Executive Officer for Smarkets.com and he reportedly admitted to being ‘especially pleased’ with the Cheltenham Festival as his enterprise recorded a boost of 833% year-on-year in associated betting volumes to complement a 193% swell in active users. He purportedly also stated that his platform had chalked up a 47% rise in the number of concurrent users on Tuesday while having processed the most bets at $19.9 million ($27.6 million) via Friday’s County Hurdle race.
“We had fantastic momentum coming into Cheltenham this year and to have broken so many records across both the exchange and SBK is a huge achievement. This year is going to be a significant year for us and this is the first of hopefully several big milestones.”
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