YouGov: Measuring brand loyalty among UK online sports bettors

A totally loyal customer that wagers nowhere else may sound like the holy grail but 100% loyal customers are not all that they seem. YouGov’s analysis of almost 20,000 interviews with monthly UK gamblers (from April 2021 to June 2022) shows that individuals loyal to one online sportsbook are less frequent bettors and lower spenders.

YouGov tracks brand loyalty in our syndicated Global Gambling Profiles consumer survey, monitoring brand accounts, frequency and what accounts are used for, alongside behaviour and attitudes in 24 countries. This means we can examine monthly online sports bettors to improve our understanding of loyalty.

First, as an example, let’s look at UK customers of bet365 who bet online on sports each month. Those who don’t have an account with any of the 13 other major sportsbooks on average stake £18 a month on sports, but customers with a second account at another major provider stake on average £80 a month in total across all their accounts.

The exclusive bet365 customers wager just once a fortnight while those with another account bet weekly (but not limited to bet365).

(Photo by PAUL ELLIS / AFP) (Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

This result repeats itself across major UK sportsbooks to a greater or lesser extent. For Sky Bet the difference is narrower (staking £15 versus £40) but for Betfair Exchange it is wider (£81 versus £225). Our analysis includes Ladbrokes, Coral, 888, William Hill, Betfred and others, which all show the same pattern.

Higher stakes

We also need to know how many sportsbooks customers split their bets across. On average, all monthly online sports bettors staking £15 or less a month on sports have just two online accounts, while those staking £16-£50 have three, £51-£200 have four, and those staking over £200 have six.

But when asked how many accounts they used in the past seven days, the number halves, with the lowest-staking group saying one account and the highest group saying three.

Returning to bet365, we find that customers with at least one other account on average use two sportsbooks a week while exclusive customers use less than one a week (due to lower frequency of betting). Therefore, the two opportunities for bet365, and all other sportsbooks, is to retain more wagering from ‘shared’ customers and increase total wagering by loyalists.

Higher spenders’ disloyalty is fuelled by the rationale that they “use specialist websites to get the best odds”. Forty-four percent of those staking £200+ a month agree with this statement versus only 17% of those staking £50 or less. They are also slightly more likely to agree that they “look out for special promotions that give away free bets” (65% versus 52%).

However, just a quarter (25%) of the higher stakers say that they “only use sites which offer loyalty schemes” compared with a similar 21% of lower stakers. They are, though, more likely to agree that they “like to try new gambling sites that I’ve not come across before” (31% versus 12%).

So, brands must learn to share customers, many of whom are their most valuable ones. This means pushing your advantages hard while laser-targeting competitors’ weaknesses.

There is also a long tail of lower-value loyal customers to please. Smaller brands will have more success acquiring regular, higher-staking gamblers that are shared with other sportsbooks.

Keeping track of market norms like the ones mentioned above will help brand progress but also requires constant understanding of both non-customers and customers, which is something that market research can support.

Oliver Rowe

Having worked for YouGov for over a decade, Oliver Rowe has advised companies including Tesco and Barclays on their reputation management. He now brings that experience to a sector which includes the betting and gaming industry in his role as global sector head for leisure and entertainment