With the Masters, Grand National and Manchester City v Liverpool in the Premier League all set to take place this week, William Hill are braced for potentially record-breaking betting activity.
The world’s most famous horse race, the Grand National, is William Hill’s single biggest individual race or event of the whole year, where the leading bookmaker expect to take over three million individual bets and predict a whopping industry-wide turnover of £200m (€240m).
In the golf, the Masters is Hills’ most bet on tournament of the entire year and with the season’s first Major perhaps the most open renewal in the past decade, the bookmaker is expecting over £20million (€24m) to be gambled.
While those two events alone would be enough to generate year-round highs of betting turnover, Sunday’s Premier league encounter between Manchester City and Liverpool is the biggest fixture in England’s top flight for years and Hills anticipate taking the highest number of bets on a single fixture since the final of Euro 2020 between England and Italy.
William Hill spokesperson, Tony Kenny, said: “The next few days are heaven for sports fans. With the Masters, Grand National, and the potential Premier League title decider between Manchester City and Liverpool all taking place, we’re seeing three of the biggest events of the year collide at once.
“We’re predicting it to be one of the busiest periods we’ve ever had at William Hill, with industry turnover for the National alone likely to be heading towards £200million.
"Sit that alongside golf’s first Major of the year and one of the biggest domestic football matches of all-time, and we could see a quarter of a billion pounds in turnover across the industry.”
Deputy Director of Horse Racing, Jack Shelley, said: “The Grand National is our single biggest individual event of the whole year. We’re expecting to take over three million individual bets online on the race itself and with retail back open for the first time since 2019, we can expect to see record turnover.
“On the back of the ultra-popular Tiger Roll winning in 2018 and 2019 and then Rachael Blackmore, another fans’ favourite, landing the race last year, we are very much hoping that our fortune on the race will change. The last result in the National that really went our way was way back in 2014 with Pineau De Re!”
Mark Bickerdike, Head of Football & Offers, said: “Manchester City v Liverpool is the biggest Premier League fixture in years and as many view it as a title decider, we’re expecting a huge amount of business in a host of markets.
“The 90 minutes market will naturally be popular, but we also expect huge amount of interest in the #YourOdds and Build #YourOdds products and in fact we are anticipating the highest number of bets taken on a single fixture since the Euro 2020 final.”
Nick Wilson, Specialist Golf Trader, commented: “The Masters is always the most bet on golf tournament each year at William Hill. We took a record 350,000 bets in 2021 and we expect to see similar interest or even more this year.
“The big story this year is will Tiger Woods tee it up for his first appearance of the year? If he does, we’d expect business to ramp up even further as every year he’s always very popular with customers.
"We currently have him at 50/1, the biggest price he’s been since winning it at 50/1 in 1997, but you’d imagine that will shorten up if he confirms he’s going to be part of the field.”
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