“There’s only one Cheltenham!” – bookies celebrate the ‘Olympics’ of horse racing

It’s been just under a week since the last day of the glitz and glamour, profit and loss, prosecco and pints of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival wrapped up – and it was certainly an eventful one for bookies and punters.

A series of favourites failed to secure the win causing frustration for the latter and relief for the former, but a few lucky bettors made some gains on the big outsiders that finished ahead of the more widely anticipated runners.

But with horse racing attendances struggling, even at one of the jewels in its crown at Cheltenham, do bookmakers still see a future in this sport? SBC News reached out to BoyleSports, Betway, Betfair and Fitzdares to hear their views one week on.

SBC News: Did this year’s Cheltenham festival live up to expectations for both bookies and punters, in your view?

Sharon McHugh, Head of Communications and Sponsorship at BoyleSports: I think it’s fair to say that initial projections on all metrics would suggest this year’s Cheltenham Festival was better than we expected. Expectation-wise, it probably finished up more favourably for the bookies.

The margin was buoyed by some of the high-profile favourites getting beaten and Thursday’s field sizes, which had an old-fashioned festival look to them, saw a year-on-year increase in turnover. Expectations are that when the dust settles, we are expecting this to go down as our busiest festival on record.

Although a lot of punters were left surprised by the results, there were plenty of happy punters too who saw the unpredictable nature following the likes of Constitution Hill on Day 1 and proceeded to take a punt on an each-way alternative in the days that followed instead. One thing that cannot be denied for either bookie or punter is that this was one of the most unpredictable and exciting Cheltenham Festival’s, certainly results wise.

Chad Yeomans, Global Head of Communications and PR at Betway: Obviously, for bookmakers, it was a Cheltenham to remember. It’s very rare that so many well fancied shots get beaten, so there was definitely no moaning from our side. 

But there were some good winners from punters, we saw that with some popular and well backed horses winning throughout the week. It was not a one way street, but as ever Cheltenham is Cheltenham. The punters love it, we love it, it always delivers. 

Barry Orr, Head of Horse Racing PR at Betfair:  In terms of results, it exceeded expectations. To have so many odd-on-chances beats is highly unusual at the festival. 

Henry Beesley, Marketing Manager at Fitzdares: This year’s Cheltenham Festival certainly exceeded expectations for the bookies. Once Kopek Des Bordes won the Supreme, we were fearing a bloodbath as it looked very much as though it could be another week of short-priced favourites doing the business at The Festival. 

Thankfully for us, that’s pretty much where it ended for favourite backers!

Of the remaining six odds-on favourites throughout the week, only one of them won. Punters were increasingly let down by jumping errors from some of the main protagonists last week. 

Constitution Hill, Majborough and Jonbon were all high-profile examples of horses making huge mistakes at their obstacles and in many ways, those jumping errors kind of felt like the story of the week. Perhaps it was the unseasonably good ground that had an impact.

SBC News: Were there any interesting trends your trading teams noticed during this year’s event? Were any runners, in particular, catching punter attention as things changed?

McHugh, BoyleSports: There were no extraordinary betting trends that would necessarily stand out. Punters latched onto the price boosts and extra places throughout the 4 days but what surprised and delighted us most was the number of new UK-based customers coming to us and experiencing a new and improved mobile offering while retail footfall saw a marked increase on previous years.

As a brand, we’re expanding our footprint in the UK, but BoyleSports also had numerous racing product updates ahead of Cheltenham that were a big hit with customers online, including Smart View racecards, Price Boosts and Pick Your Places.  

Yeomans, Betway: There were a few throughout the week. East India Dock was smashed off the boards in the Triumph on Friday and the 100/1 shot won it. What looked like it would have been a bad start to Friday turned out to be a great start to Friday, but punters definitely got their way with  Wodhooh in the last.

On Thursday the biggest loser on the book was Fact to File, the fact they chose to go in the Ryanair not the Gold Cup was the big telltale sign to punters. It was a big reveal race – not to disrespect the runners in it, but he was just a different class and the fact he went in at 6/4 was quite generous. 

You can always say in terms of trends it’s no surprise that Irish horses are always well backed and there were so many Irish favourites throughout the week. That was a trend we’ve been seeing over the past six or seven years, the Irish have better horses and punters are latching on to that. Gavin Cromwell and Willie Mullins are having a great time of it and sometimes that is expensive for us.

Orr, Betfair: Our offer of a free bet on horse racing multiples each day of the festival drove a lot of activity.

Beesley, Fitzdares: Like most bookmakers, we were hoping the Tuesday four-fold of Kopek Des Bordes, Majborough, Lossiemouth and Constitution Hill was beaten and thankfully it was pretty much over before it started after the Arkle.

From Tuesday onwards, it was then a real battle for punters with surprise winners coming out left, right and centre. Jonnywho, who was sent off favourite for the Kim Muir on Thursday was popular with us as punters looked towards the top of the market to get out of jail in the last. That would have been a terrible result for us, so we were pleased to see him get collared up in the run-in.

Friday was a similar story with Kopek De Mee in the Martin Pipe — getting him beaten was crucial for us to round off the meeting on a positive note.

SBC News: With attendance figures stagnating, do you still value Cheltenham as one of the most important fixtures in the sportsbook calendar?

McHugh, BoyleSports: Cheltenham remains the Olympics of National Hunt Racing and the ultimate fixture in the calendar. I think the way people are choosing to enjoy it is evolving. 

For example, just simply from a personal perspective, I know lots of people who took the week off work to enjoy it with friends in their local, I know other people who travelled to Spain to enjoy it in a sunnier climate. 

I think it will be interesting to see the TV viewing figures for Cheltenham, but with that, there’s no real measurement for how many people are watching in a commercial premises en masse. The betting would certainly suggest that Cheltenham is still hugely valuable and with the calibre of racing we witnessed this year, I really cannot see that changing anytime soon!

Yeomans, Betway: In the UK and Ireland Cheltenham is the pinnacle of horse racing. It’s the biggest ante post betting market in racing and the bulk up is what punters love. 

It is the best, from our point of view it is the most exciting. It is the one punters love and while the cords are down that could be down to the price of point of entry and travel etc, or whether people just want to watch it at home or watch it in the sun, we‘ve seen so much about in the media of late.

It wouldn’t be a huge worry that attendance figures were down this year, because of how good figures have been over the past 10 years, at some point, it had to plateau and as mentioned, the cost to get in and cost to travel etc, it wasn’t a huge surprise to see numbers of people attending down.

It wouldn’t be a huge worry that figures are down because of how good figures have been over the past 10 years, at some point it has to plateau – cost to get in, cost to travel, it wasn’t a huge surprise to see numbers of people attending down.

Orr, Betfair: It is the biggest race meeting in terms of match volume on the Betfair exchange and turnover on the sportsbook. Royal Ascot could challenge that this year but several races from each fixture will dominate the top bet races.

Beesley, Fitzdares: There’s only one Cheltenham Festival. It’s still comfortably the biggest betting week of the year, but ultimately there remain some glaring issues with the programme.

The Jockey Club has made some changes, but I think there is plenty more work to do to tweak the programme and therefore make the racing more competitive.

Fundamentally, paying customers don’t want to go racing and watch uncompetitive, small fields with short-priced favourites. That’s not to mention the price of a Guinness!