This summary marks the first FairPlay Brand Perception Tracker for 2025, with Q1 generally marking somewhat of an outlierin the UK sports betting calendar due to the mania that come associated with the Cheltenham Festival.
This tracker had its fieldwork completed following the Festival and it should be noted that this may have an impact on responses to brands based on the involvement and success around Cheltenham of those surveyed.
In Q1 2025, we see a general decline in brand awareness. As mentioned above, the survey followed a period of intense, peak betting activity, and so lower engagement through betting apathy may be a factor.
‘Regular usage’ though, has remained in line with expectations, with Sky Bet seemingly the standout winner of the quarter in this regard. Jumping 3% from Q4 2024 in this metric, the Leeds-based brand now trails bet365 by only 1%. Paddy Power also saw a hike of 8%, notably outperforming two of its main rivals, William Hill and Betfair.
Sky Bet’s success looks to be directly related to its Cheltenham Festival marketing strategy, with the brand leading the industry on the perception of ‘Rewards customers’, with place term generosity across the week seeing it lead on the ‘Extra places’ feature. It also ranked top for ‘Free bets’ and ‘Loyalty schemes’, demonstrating a joined-up campaign that secured significant cut through to the racing audience.
Despite Sky Bet’s strong quarterly performance, bet365 remains well clear in this survey for ‘Favourite’ brand (39%), with it converting impressively from ‘Regular Usage’ (49%), whereas Sky Bet, which has a similar usage score, only derives 17% of the audience as its favoured sportsbook.
In terms of brand perceptions, bet365 maintains its lead as a respected operator, being seen as ‘Fair’ (40%) and ‘Trustworthy’ (44%), while also over indexing by 5% on ‘Care about customers’. Sky Bet, in comparison, overperformed for ‘Generous’ (+4%) and ‘Reward customers (+5%).
Looking at sports betting features, bet365 ranks 13% above expectation on ‘Best odds’, with Sky Bet 17% and 12% above base for ‘Loyalty schemes’ and ‘Extra places’, respectively. Whether these hold for Q2 without the Cheltenham Festival campaign will be an interesting trend to watch.
BetVictor looks to be developing a perception for a robust, customer-first offering, with it overperforming on ‘Safer gambling features’ by 5%, while also performing well in ‘Trustworthy’ and ‘Fair’ brand perceptions.
Looking at general trends from the last quarter, bet365 has taken a 12% hit, falling to 33% on how its viewed for being ‘Generous’, with most other ranked brands rising in this category.
Whether this is due to a high benchmark and the levelling factor of Cheltenham will play out in the coming quarters, but the betting giant will be pleased to see it continue to rise above its rivals for ‘In-play betting’, where its 3% quarterly bump puts it 19% clear of next best Sky Bet.
About FairPlay Sports Media
EGR and FairPlay Sports Media have partnered to bring a data-led, quarterly report on brand perception of leading firms in the sector.
These insights are produced by FairPlay Sports Media senior customer insights manager Peter Morris. He has more than a decade of experience working in market research, starting his career working at agencies Ipsos Mori and then 2CV, with a particular focus on brand and marketing research projects.
In 2018, Morris joined what was then Oddschecker, focusing on UK product and marketing insight. Since then, he has expanded his role, heading up customer insight within FairPlay Sports Media, providing intel across all their operations and territories.
The post Operator Tracker Q1 2025: Bet365 out in front following Cheltenham Festival first appeared on EGR Intel.
FairPlay Sports Media returns with its quarterly data dive into perception trends in the UK sports betting market, with Sky Bet making strong gains in first three months of the year
The post Operator Tracker Q1 2025: Bet365 out in front following Cheltenham Festival first appeared on EGR Intel.