| Olympic Success for British Betting Industry |
As the London 2012 Olympic Games drew to a close last night, the British betting industry was celebrating a bumper two weeks of profits.Early predictions from bookmakers suggest that turnover for the past two weeks could reach a staggering £80 million. This is in stark contrast to the £4 million figure registered four years ago for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
Betfair has stated that betting activity on its site has doubled with an estimated 100,000 placing bets during the period the Olympic Games were on. Up to 19,000 are believed to have placed a bet at the online betting exchange on the 100 metres men’s final.
It was anticipated to be the most successful Olympic Games ever for the betting industry with every sport scheduled available for punters to place a bet on. The fact that the British athletes also delivered brought a large amount of patriotic bets.
In the end, Great Britain notched up a medal haul of 65 medals including 29 gold medals, 17 silver medals and 19 bronze medals. Household names such as Jessica Ennis, Rebecca Adlington, Mo Farah and Sir Chris Hoy drew a large number of bets from the British public as punters backed the home athletes in their respective events.
The Olympic Games being hosted in London also gave tourists from countries where betting is not legal to come over and enjoy the opportunity to place a bet on any sport legally. This is believed to have contributed a large amount to the increase in the number of bets and the amount of money wagered during the past two weeks.
< Back to news index