OpenBet powers half a billion sports betting transactions during 2022 Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival

OpenBet reaffirmed its position as a leading betting platform provider during the world’s biggest sporting events after the company’s sports content and technology processed half a billion sports betting transactions during last week’s Cheltenham Festival, it announced in a statement on Tuesday.

The four-day Festival is one of the biggest horse racing-based meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom. This year it was held between 15th and 18th March.

This year, Rachel Blackmore rode into the history books after becoming the first female jockey to win the Gold Cup, with 3/1 favorite A Plus Tard storming to success in a race the pair finished last year as runners up.

Interest from bettors for the main race was extremely high, with OpenBet processing a total of 3.5 million bets. Across the week-long meeting, overall bets taken remained at similar levels to the 2021 event, which experienced exponential growth due to COVID-19 lockdowns and uplift in online activity because of retail betting venue closures.

Other key highlights across OpenBet’s operator customers include:

• Stakes amounting to £500 million processed, 23 per cent increase on 2020.
• Average stakes for singles in all Win & Each Way markets during the festival was £8.22.
• Peak of over 60,000 bets per minute.
• 53 per cent increase in betting activity compared to 2020 meeting.

OpenBet’s unrivalled sports betting platform technology reported 100% uptime during the festival, illustrating why the company remains the partner of choice for market leading operators, including William Hill, Entain’s Ladbrokes and Coral brands, and Flutter Entertainment’s Paddy Power, SkyBet and Betfair.

Jordan Levin, CEO at OpenBet, said: “Cheltenham Festival delivered a fantastic week of racing entertainment that gripped the attention of bettors across the UK and beyond. This year’s Gold Cup will live long in the memory as Rachel Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the iconic race.

"The festival will also be hugely memorable from a betting perspective, with OpenBet’s betting engine processing half a billion sports betting transactions. We anticipated a high volume of bets and once again, OpenBet delivered on its vision of delivering safe and responsible experiences to billions of sports fans. And whilst our tech, content and services took pole position, it's the work of our OpenBet pit stop crew who prepare and deliver meticulously through these global events.”