This year’s Grand National Festival has inspired record betting levels according to figures from Scientific Games and Smarkets.
The annual horse-racing event, which was cancelled last year due to covid-19, took place between the 7 and 9 April and was won for the first time by a female jockey, Rachel Blackmore on Minella Times. Scientific Games reported more than 50 million bets placed through its OpenSports platform during the event.
Scientific Games customers include Sky Betting and Gaming, Paddy Power, Betfair, Ladbrokes, Coral and William Hill, who all witnessed significant increases in volume.
The supplier reported 19 million wagers on the main Grand National race, which was 60.5 per cent more than the last time the event took place in 2019. It also reported that one OpenSports customer broke all Grand National betting records with peak bets exceeding 57,000 per minute, which was a 128 per cent increase on 2019.
Total account transactions across the three days were up 55 per cent compared to the last Grand National Festival.
Meanwhile, Smarkets recorded a total of £131m ($180m/€151m) traded on races across the festival.
Smarkets chief executive Jason Trost said: “After a record-breaking Cheltenham Festival for the company, to have set a new all-time high for betting volume on a single event is another big milestone for us. The growth of both our products, but especially SBK, has been phenomenal recently.
“We have a lot of momentum as a business right now, and with a summer football tournament one of several big events coming up, I’m excited for the next few months.”
