In Numbers: Cheltenham Festival 2020

Given the last few days in sport — with all, if not most, big events being postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak — it was a surprise to some that this year’s Cheltenham Festival went ahead as planned last week.

However, it seems that the biggest four days in jump racing just beat the swathe of cancellations and for us at Smarkets, it was a busy week as ever.

The big difference for us this year was having our new sportsbook app, SBK, fully out in the wild for its first Cheltenham.

We launched the product last year and have really noticed an uptick in interest especially in the early part of this year. Two key records for SBK were smashed last week:

• The record for daily active users soared by 257% on the first day of Cheltenham (Tuesday 10 March)
• The weekly sign-up record for was also broken, rising by 235%

As for the Smarkets Exchange, the opening day of the Festival saw the second-highest number of daily active users ever, and our platform once again performed with 100% uptime throughout Cheltenham week.

Smarkets and SBK were also best priced on all 28 races when compared with the Industry Starting Price (SP), while a £10 bet on all 28 Festival winners with us would have made you £2,524.20 more profit compared to the SP.

The biggest price difference came on Friday, with Foxhunters Chase winner It Came To Pass available to back at 239/1 just before the off vs. an SP of 66/1.

Smarkets CEO/Founder Jason Trost said:

“Now that we have two competitive products in Smarkets and SBK, I am prouder than ever of the service we provided for our users this Cheltenham.

“This was accomplished with a stable platform, record-breaking numbers for SBK users, as well as total traded volume of £120m. Thanks to our leading technology and clear focus on price, we once again offered the best odds on all 28 races compared to the SP.

“Looking to the year ahead, we are excited to bring SBK to the fledgling American market having acquired licenses in Indiana and Colorado, alongside building on the great momentum we have achieved in the UK.”