Sports content and technology company OpenBet has revealed that it processed half a billion sports betting transactions during last week’s Cheltenham Festival. 

The four-day race event, one of the biggest meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the UK, saw the firm process a total of 3.5 million bets for the Gold Cup alone.

Furthermore, across the week-long meeting, overall bets taken remained at similar levels to the 2021 event, which experienced ‘exponential growth’ due to the COVID-19 pandemic and uplift in online activity because of retail betting shop closures.

Jordan Levin, CEO at OpenBet, commented: “Cheltenham Festival delivered a fantastic week of racing entertainment that gripped the attention of bettors across the UK and beyond. This year’s Gold Cup will live long in the memory as Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the iconic race.”

This year, Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the main race, with 3/1 favourite A Plus Tard going to success in a race the pair finished last year as runners up.

Levin continued: “The festival will also be hugely memorable from a betting perspective, with OpenBet’s betting engine processing half a billion sports betting transactions. We anticipated a high volume of bets and once again, OpenBet delivered on its vision of delivering safe and responsible experiences to billions of sports fans. 

“And whilst our tech, content and services took pole position, it’s the work of our OpenBet pit stop crew who prepare and deliver meticulously through these global events.” 

Additionally, other key highlights across OpenBet’s operator customers included: Stakes amounting to £500 million processed, 23% increase on 2020, average stakes for singles in all Win & Each Way markets during the festival was £8.22, peak of over 60,000 bets per minute and a 53% increase in betting activity compared to the 2020 meeting.

Moreover, OpenBet’s sports betting platform technology reported 100% uptime during the festival. The betting firm remains a partner of operators such as William Hill, Entain’s Ladbrokes and Coral brands, and Flutter Entertainment’s Paddy Power, SkyBet and Betfair.