Leading UK Online Sports Betting Operators in By: Deekla Schechter & Joel Zand

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1 Leading UK Online Sports Betting Operators in 2015 By: Deekla Schechter & Joel Zand

2 Table of Contents Overview 3 Sports Betting Dominates UK Online Gambling Traffic 4 Most Searched Brands 5 Mobile Web Traffic Taking Over 6 Web Traffic Peaks on the Weekends 8 Bet 365 Led Desktop Traffic in Top Brands Engagement Metrics 10 Post Tax Highs and Lows: 2014 vs Where is the Traffic Coming From? 12 Social Media Traffic 13 What Will 2016 Bring? 14 SimilarWeb.com 2

3 Overview: 2015 was an adventurous year for the UK s online gambling industry. Operators had to adapt to some significant changes in a crucial market particularly the UK s new 15% point of consumption tax on profits of operators offering UK customers money on gaming prizes that went into effect in late Last year also saw attempted takeovers, mergers, bidding wars, and acquisitions stirring the gaming market into a consolidatory mindset. We surveyed the UK s top market leaders in the Sports Betting vertical to provide actionable traffic insights for SimilarWeb.com 3

4 Sports Betting Dominates UK Online Gambling Traffic Looking at all of the UK s online gambling traffic categorized by SimilarWeb Sports Betting was responsible for 36% of desktop traffic within this category. SimilarWeb.com 4

5 Most Searched Brands: Bet365, Paddy Power, William Hill, Skybet Sports Betting operators represented a significant share of all gamblingrelated keyword searches in Last year, Bet365 was the second-most searched term within the gambling category. Top Searched Gambling Keyword 59% 41% 1. national lottery 2. bet Lottery 4. Skybet 5. Lotto 6. william hill 7. lottery results 8. euromillions 9. paddy power 10. lotto results 11. ladbrokes 12. tombola 13. jackpotjoy 14. Betfair 15. Coral 16. racing post SimilarWeb.com 5

6 Mobile Web Traffic Taking Over Mobile web traffic was in hypergrowth mode in 2015, and 2016 should see this trend continue. In 2014, mobile web traffic was responsible for just 35% of UK traffic to the gaming brands below. Last year, mobile devices sent even more Web traffic approximately 50% -- to UK Sports Betting websites. This means that these UK online Sports Betting gaming companies saw a 23% decrease in year-on-year desktop traffic, while YoY mobile Web traffic grew 44% SimilarWeb.com 6

7 Here is how UK-based mobile web and desktop traffic visits are distributed amongst the industry s leading brands: SimilarWeb.com 7

8 Web Traffic Peaks on the Weekends According to SimilarWeb data on, UK Sports Betting traffic peaks on Saturdays, followed by Sundays: This information can help companies deploy timely blasts to users, formulate an offline advertising schedule, and build paid search campaigns. SimilarWeb.com 8

9 Bet365 Led Online Desktop Traffic in 2015 Seven of the UK s top online Sports Betting operators received more traffic in 2015 than the year before. Bet365 was the uncontested desktop traffic leader, followed by William Hill, SkyBet, and Ladbrokes. Here s the full breakdown: Website bet365.com williamhill.com skybet.com ladbrokes.com betfred.com coral.co.uk paddypower.com betfair.com 10bet.co.uk betvictor.com bwin.com betway.com olbg.com boylesports.com sportingbet.com betsafe.com betdaq.com betbright.com Avg Visits ,076,509 23,292,883 15,439,956 15,079,475 8,963,269 6,952,912 6,185,089 3,113,018 2,083, , , , ,165 92,705 91,098 73,433 73,014 62,544 Avg Visits 2014 Change % 32,249, % 18,537, % 13,069, % 10,176, % 14,693, % 6,647, % 4,105, % 4,472, % 225, % 946, % 1,109, % 742, % 299, % 154, % 185, % 137, % 166, % 104, % Some operators might been more cautious with their spending, due to impending lower margins from the new Point of Consumption Tax. However, major brands like Bet365, William Hill, SkyBet, Ladbrokes, and PaddyPower actually took traffic from the competitors brands who stopped investing in the UK market. SimilarWeb.com 9

10 Player Engagement Metrics Using SimilarWeb s website comparison tool, we looked at 2015 player engagement metrics for the leading UK online Sports Betting brands. The data below is for combined mobile Web and desktop traffic. Gambling Website Avg. Visit Duration Avg. Pages / Visit Bounce Rate bet365.com 0:11: % williamhill.com 0:08: % skybet.com 0:06: % ladbrokes.com 0:05: % coral.co.uk 0:07: % paddypower.com 0:03: % betfair.com 0:16: % titanbet.co.uk 0:03: % 10bet.co.uk 0:02: % betvictor.com 0:05: % bwin.com 0:06: % Betfair.com had the lowest bounce rate of all the brands. It also has the highest average visit duration, as well as the most average pages viewed per visit. Nevertheless, as can be seen in the following section, this can be explained by the fact that Betfair significantly reduced their traffic share in the UK. The current traffic metrics may represent returning customers who will naturally be more engaged on the site. Excluding Betfair, Bet365 had one of the lowest bounce rates while keeping its users highly engaged for an average of more than 11 minutes. SimilarWeb.com 10

11 Post Tax Highs and Lows: 2014 vs When the point of consumption tax went into effect in December 2014, some operators pulled out the market. Others dealt with the new reality by adjusting their marketing efforts in an effort to ensure continued growth despite lower margins. Using SimilarWeb data, we compared 2015 and 2014 online desktop traffic. The results were fascinating: during the first six months of 2015, four of the top UK Sports Betting brands outperformed their Month-on-Month share of 2014 online desktop traffic. SimilarWeb.com 11

12 Where is the Traffic Coming From? Using SimilarWeb data, we found that Sports Betting operators received a varying amount of weight from different online traffic sources. For example, referrals were the biggest source of traffic for William Hill and Ladbrokes, while display advertising was by far the biggest channel for the other brands. Seeing the percentage of traffic change over time, per channel, for each brand lets you learn about the competitions marketing strategies. You can see what traffic sources work well for different Sports Betting companies, and which do not. SimilarWeb.com 12

13 Social Media Traffic We examined Social Media traffic for the UK s leading online Sports Betting brands. While currently a small channel, Social Media has great potential to grow with the right content and user engagement. For example, we looked at the highest-ranked social channels that brands use to promote their products. We saw predictable as well as unusual trends: SimilarWeb.com 13

14 UK Sports Betting operators are using traditional Social Media channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit, but there is also an increase in social traffic from music streaming site SoundCloud. Most notably, Ladbrokes and Coral received 58% and 62% of their social traffic respectively from SoundCloud.com. Although the numbers aren t huge just yet, it represents a channel that appears to be growing. What Will 2016 Bring? 2016 will be an interesting year, where the gaming landscape is likely to see even more changes. With upcoming mergers and acquisitions coming into fruition, it is worth watching how brands will leverage their respective new partners to complement their activities throughout the year. We will continue to examine different channels within the online gaming industry, and provide you with unique insights to help you navigate the digital space. SimilarWeb.com 14

15 Don't Gamble with Your Online Strategy SimilarWeb s digital insights enable online gambling companies to discover their competitors marketing strategies, have an effective platform to decide which online channels to pursue, and effectively deploy digital marketing strategies to effectively engage consumers. To learn more about how we can help your online marketing strategy, call SimilarWeb at , or contact us online. DISCOVER DECIDE DEPLOY SimilarWeb.com 15

16 Discover Your Competitors Digital Strategy SimilarWeb s proprietary big-data technology is the basis of our SaaS solutions. SimilarWeb s experienced research teams use machine learning algorithms and statistical modeling to combine multiple global and cross device data sources. Every day SimilarWeb collects and processes billions of data points covering every website, every app, across every industry, worldwide. This is done by combining data from the following sources: 1. We own the largest and most diverse panel in the world comprised of over 200 million users who use one of our thousands of free apps in exchange for access to their anonymous mobile app and website usage data. 2. We partner with Internet Service Providers around the world and integrate their data into our system. Working with ISPs enables us to sit on the pipes that shift internet data around the world and analyse this data, providing us with a deeper understanding of online trends ,000s of websites and apps directly share their analytics data to help explain the digital world. 4. We crawl, collect and map billions of data points per month from around the web and digital ecosystem. SimilarWeb.com 16