Pulse
SPORTS BETTING SCIENTIFIC GAMES
Te Grand National: horses for courses
Keith O'Loughlin, SVP Sports at Scientific Games, explains how a stable and reliable sportsbook platform helped make the Grand National a record-breaking event for the world’s biggest operators.
What a difference a year makes. It is only a little over 12 months ago that after an action-packed, crowd-filled Cheltenham Festival, the sports betting industry was confronted with the stark fact that the Grand National meeting at Aintree would not be taking place.
Keith O'Loughlin, Senior Vice President Sports, Scientific Games
An unprecedented 50 million bets were processed through the UK’s leading sportsbook operators for across the three days of racing at Aintree – with 19 million of those placed on the Grand National itself – and a seamless, uninterrupted experience for our partners was provided thanks to our robust, reliable platform. Incredibly, this number of bets represented a 36 per cent increase on those placed with the same operators during the festival in 2019.
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Instead, as the UK government imposed its first lockdown, racing fans watched from home as a Virtual Grand National took centre-stage on television. While the computerised recreation exceeded expectations, helping the betting industry to raise £2.6m for NHS Charities, it was no substitute for the excitement of the real thing.
Tere was to be no return of spectators to Aintree this year, with a closed-doors event taking place for the first time since the inaugural race in 1839. Tankfully, though, the Grand National did come back after a year’s absence, and there was certainly no shortage of demand from enthusiasts seeking to bet on a heavily anticipated race. With betting shops closed in the UK, bettors needed to move to the online space if they wished to place a bet in a shift of normal habits for many.
Cloth Cap, owned by previous Grand National winning owner Trevor Hemmings, was a clear 11/2 favourite after impressively winning his last two starts including the Grade 3 Ladbrokes Trophy back in November. Leading owner JP McManus was represented by seven horses, headed by second-favourite, Any Second Now, who came in for support and went off second- favourite.
History was made as Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the famous race, partnering Minella Times to victory for trainer Henry De Bromhead and
owner JP McManus. Tis historic win followed Blackmore’s Champion Hurdle victory at the Cheltenham Festival and taking the leading jockeys’ title at Te Festival with six winners.
Te win also capped off a memorable few weeks for De Bromhead who landed the Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival in March.
In fact, the 2021 Grand National posed what was arguably the biggest test of Scientific Games’ OpenSports technology to date. With no retail or on-course betting available for UK customers, the first fully digitalised race was sure to provide a massive challenge for any tech stack, as customers moved online in wholesale fashion.
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