SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
In a week where William Hill and Ladbrokes have been citing poor sporting results in their disappointing interim figures, the start of the football season should have been a fillip for bookmakers.
Data from AccaTracker, the leading football betting app developed by Team FA, found that the two most popular matches in people’s accumulators on the first weekend of Premier League action ended in unexpected 2-2 draws.
15% of bets included Everton’s match against newly promoted Watford, in which the home side saved face with a late Kone equaliser, while Chelsea’s game against Swansea City, which saw the Champions reduced to 10 men and holding on against an impressive Swans side, was selected in 11% of people’s accumulator bets.
Out of the rest of the top ten chosen matches, only Bolton’s draw against Derby and Charlton’s dispatching of recently relegated rivals QPR could be properly viewed as going the bookmaker’s way.
Team FA CEO Jamie Knowlson commented: “It was a good start to the football season for the bookmakers, with a handful of key matches ending in a draw – by far their favourite outcome for a football match. Taking into consideration Arsenal’s unexpected home defeat to West Ham on the Sunday as well, it’s fair to say that bookmakers will be one up on punters this weekend.”
Most popular matches selected by individual AccaTracker users for their accumulators and the percentage of accumulators fearuring those matches
| Unique Users | Bets | Result | |
| Everton v Watford | 14% | 15% | 2-2 |
| Chelsea v Swansea | 11% | 11% | 2-2 |
| Norwich v Crystal Palace | 11% | 11% | 1-3 |
| Man Utd v Tottenham | 8% | 8% | 1-0 |
| Hull v Huddersfield | 10% | 10% | 2-0 |
| Bournemouth v Aston Villa | 10% | 11% | 0-1 |
| Leicester v Sunderland | 8% | 8% | 4-2 |
| Bolton v Derby | 7% | 7% | 0-0 |
| Charlton v QPR | 5% | 5% | 2-0 |
| Blackburn v Wolves | 5% | 4% | 1-2 |
| Brentford v Ipswich | 4% | 4% | 2-2 |
| Leeds v Burnley | 2% | 2% | 1-1 |
| Birmingham v Reading | 3% | 3% | 2-1 |
| Cardiff v Fulham | 1% | 1% | 1-1 |
Users may have more than one accumulator bet registered with AccaTracker.
Accatracker has been downloaded over 750,000 times, and is the only UK betting app to be listed as a ‘Featured App Store Favourite’
