Success of market leaders makes for tough start to 2019 for bookmakers

The first quarter of 2019 looks to have been a tough one for bookmakers judging by results in British horseracing and the English Premier League.

According to figures compiled by the Racing Post, the proportion of winning favourites in British racing increased by almost three percentage points over the equivalent period in 2018 to 37.6 per cent.

Indeed a punter having a level-stake bet on favourites for the first three months of the year would have lost less than three per cent of turnover over the first three months of 2019.

The Cheltenham Festival was of course the biggest event of the first three months of the year as far as horseracing was concerned and the anecdotal evidence suggested that results balanced themselves out over the four days, although promotions and offers will have cost some operators dear.

Punters enjoyed a golden period from Altior winning Wednesday's Queen Mother Champion Chase to Paisley Park's success in the Stayers' Hurdle on Thursday, with favourites landing seven of the eight races. The well-backed Frodon was the only non favourite to oblige.

However, results swung back in bookmakers' favour on Gold Cup day which, according to figures supplied by Ladbrokes Coral, contained seven of the top ten betting races by turnover at the whole meeting.

The wins of Al Boum Photo in the Gold Cup (12-1), Pentland Hills in the Triumph (20-1), Minella Indo in the Albert Bartlett (50-1) and Croco Bay in the Grand Annual (66-1) all went the way of the layers.

There was also some relief for bookmakers from Irish horseracing with a near ten per cent fall in the proportion of winning favourites to 35.1 per cent.

Football results also appear to have gone against bookmakers over the first three months of the year.

The proportion of favourites winning Premier League matches was 61.6 per cent compared to 56.9 per cent for the same period in 2018 and a long-term average of 55 per cent.

Winning favourites in matches involving the top six clubs did fall slightly to 71.4 per cent from 72 per cent but were still higher than the first quarter figure since 2010 of 62.9 per cent.

The fall in the number of draws in English football's top tier is also likely to have hit bookmakers with the number of matches ending even falling by nearly a third to 16.8 per cent.

The weekend of February 9 would have been particularly painful with Manchester United, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool all winning and Manchester City beating Chelsea.

Tiger Roll: his National victory was not a huge blow for bookmakersCredit: Grossick Racing 07710461723

The opening days of the second quarter, which for a number of firms has begun with the introduction of FOBT stake cuts and an increase in remote gaming duty, may have continued the trend in horseracing

Tiger Roll's Grand National victory was not the huge blow many thought it might have been, with a number of bookmakers reporting they had either won or not come to much harm from the result.

However, there were six winning favourites at the meeting and the average SP of a little more than 6-1 was the shortest of the decade.

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