Oddschecker: October records lowest sports margins since March 2019
Customer-friendly results in football and racing see betting win margins drop from 6.1% to 0.6% between September and October
Sports betting win margins fell to just 0.6% in October, the lowest on record since March 2019, according to the latest data from oddschecker and Barclays.
Punter-friendly results occurred in both football and horseracing throughout last month, causing operator sports margins to drop by five and a half percentage points from September (6.1%).
Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City were in frightening form last month, losing just one of their combined 11 Premier League matches, while fan favourites Mohamed Salah and Cristiano Ronaldo kept on scoring to boost betting slips and trigger bookie pay-outs.
For perspective, the average margin in Q3 was 4.8%, while the long-term average is 3.4%.
Speaking during Flutter’s Q3 results call yesterday, CEO Peter Jackson revealed the adverse results had negatively impacted EBITDA, excluding the US division, by £60m.
“Sports results since the start of Q4 have gone against us in all regions with our gross win margin over 400 basis points below expectations,” said Jackson.
“The majority of that £60m lands in the UK and Ireland, where football results in particular have gone against us.
“This is just the business we’re in and sometimes results go against us. The October results are actually just a reversion to the mean in the UK and Ireland, where we benefited from favourable results in H1.
“The recent reversal brings the actual margin to the division back to expected levels for the year,” he added.
Flutter’s FTSE 100 rival Entain has also warned of a significant downturn in Q4 after benefitting from a Q3 sports margin of 12.8%.