RacingBetter News
	Wednesday 26th February 2025

What to Expect from Bookies with Offers Hitting the UK Market Ahead of the Cheltenham Festival

The Cheltenham Festival is on our doorstep with the thundering of hooves around the prestigious racecourse less than a couple of weeks away. And it is the time for conversations and discussions around this year’s favourites and dark horses to ramp up another notch. Bookmakers around the country are driving that noise for what will be one of their most lucrative events of the year.

Over £500 million is wagered at racecourses and online over the four-day event with Gold Cup Day attracting the most interest. Last year’s event, and the 96th annual running of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, was won by Willie Mullins’ Galopin Des Champs, ridden by Paul Townend. Team Mullins scooped up the £351,688 prize for crossing the line first and will be attempting to make it a hat-trick of wins this year. With even more prize money made available by The Jockey Club, the stakes are even higher and bookmakers, physical and online, will also be slowly unveiling their generous offerings up until and during the festival.

UK bookmakers running their own race

The combination of horse racing and sports betting has been a staple in British culture for centuries, dating as far back as 1795, when Harry Ogden became the first bookmaker. Operating on Newmarket Heath, Ogden went down in the history books as the inventor of betting odds. Ogden assigned odds to each runner and set the path alight for further bookmakers to further enhance and refine the odds system.

Fast forward to the present day, and there are 175 active online sports betting operators in the United Kingdom and for each and every one of them, they are in a race of their own with all the other competitors to provide the best value odds and bonuses to get the online punters through their virtual door. With a congested and competitive sports betting market, the smallest bonus or advantage could make the difference and for the Cheltenham Festival, there are plenty of incentives on offer.

Incentives for punters old and new

With such a vast ocean of online bookmakers to choose from, it is often difficult to differentiate between them. Luckily for anyone looking to place a bet on the Cheltenham Festival, the popularity of sports betting in the UK means there are a large number of options to choose from for each individual. From credit card betting sites, to online bookmakers accepting cryptocurrency, to those that reward Apple or Google Pay customers, there is a huge variety of payment options to scour through to find the best incentives. With many bonuses linked to new sign-ups, new customers can get off on the right foot.

Those incentives and bonuses can be claimed from the initial point of signing up to an online bookmaker and through the online sports betting journey, from rifling through the bet builder markets to actually placing the wager. The beauty of competition is that it naturally produces variety. That could be variety in the odds offered for a particular horse race, the number of cash out options, or the level of bonus and free bets made available for signing up to a certain bookmaker. While it is always important to read the small print with regards to how bonuses are used and awarded, sign up bonuses between the active online bookmakers in the UK total up to the £1000s.

However, the work of an online bookmaker does not stop with mouth-watering bonuses. To offer a full package for the festival, bookmakers also feed out their top tips for each race, with the best experts in the horse racing industry offering their most detail analysis on the runners and riders. Furthermore, the more generous online bookmakers will offer greater potential to win with extra finishing places and even money back specials in certain events like a horse pulling out for example.

Galopin Des Champs to make it a hat-trick?

While punters will be getting their favourites picks in order off the racecourse, the deciding factors in any bet will be preparing themselves for the action on it. And for Galopin Des Champs, the chance to join an elite group of horses beckons if Willie Mullins’ winning machine can triumph again.

Having claimed a historic third Irish Gold Cup in a row at Leopardstown at the beginning of February, Galopin Des Champs, can join the likes of Golden Miller, Arkle, Best Mate, and Cottage Rake in winning three consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups. The bookmakers are currently heavily backing Galopin Des Champs to do just that.