SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Using data from Google trends, Bookmaker Ratings has proved that bet365 was consistently the most searched for bookmaker in the UK between April 2014 and April 2017.
Although there were short periods where other firms rivalled its Google search popularity, bet365 has been “thriving in terms of online popularity” since selling off the entirety of its betting shop chain to become a solely online-based gambling company back in 2005.
The graph below, produced by Bookmaker Ratings, shows that 888sport, Marathonbet and Ladbrokes joined bet365 in the top four for search engine activity across the three-year period.
888sport’s second placed status was something of a surprise, especially ahead of Ladbrokes, while big names such as Paddy Power, Betfair and Betfred failed to make the top four.
From this one-on-one graph, you can see that 888sport held its own, particularly during the first half of 2016, but ultimately failed to match the consistency shown by the Stoke-based bookmaker.
Like 888sport, Marathonbet was able to keep up with bet365 around the first half of last year, but was unable to match the search engine leader over the course of the three-year period.
Meanwhile Ladbrokes, perhaps the best known in the UK of the top three challengers, has tailed off in search popularity relative to bet365 since a spike in the second half of 2014, which can probably be attributed to the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
