Oddschecker insights: Paddy Power and Sky Bet wage place terms battle at York Ebor Festival

The fight to unseat bet365 on top of the Oddschecker clickshare rankings was fought with place terms at the York Ebor Festival, with an intense battle developing between Sky Bet and Paddy Power.

The Irish bookie came out on top during the first two days of the festival, offering six places on the 13:55 Wednesday race to hoover up 19.7% of clickshare for the day, finishing in second place.

Sky Bet fought back on the Thursday by offering six places on the 14:25 when most bookies opted for four. The move got them to within 1.9pp of bet365, but Paddy Power held onto second place for the day after also offering six places on the 15:00.

The battle reached its climax on Saturday when Sky Bet offered a whopping eight places on the 15:40. The move saw the operator knock bet365 off the top spot with 26.6% clickshare, as Paddy Power finished third despite offering seven places on the same race.

Over the entire festival, Sky Bet offered 102 places, while Paddy Power offered 98.

Oddschecker commercial executive Nicky Withers said: “The battle of places between Paddy Power and Sky Bet is fascinating to watch, with a limit on the place terms that can be sensibly offered, it’ll be interesting to see how the strategy evolves.”

The Ebor Festival proved a typically successful event for bet365, with tight pricing seeing them top the Oddschecker horse racing clickshare tables on every day of the event.

The Stoke-headquartered operator reported an average festival overround of 116.2% – 3.2pp tighter than nearest competitor Unibet.