Even in a year in which England reached the final of football’s European Championships, the Grand National was once again the most bet-upon sporting event in the UK in 2024.
But even so, football still dominated in terms of the biggest punting events – as per Entain’s data – with eight of the top ten, and 34 of the top 50, most bet-upon markets all attributed to the beautiful game.
Surprisingly, the Super Bowl saw the second-most bets placed… ahead of England’s Euro 2024 final with Spain, which was watched by a domestic TV audience of 24.2 million.
A Grand Day
The Grand National betting data for 2024 is emblematic of just how beloved the annual Aintree showpiece is with first time, casual and regular punters alike.
According to Entain, the parent company of Ladbrokes, Coral and others, a staggering 700% more bets were placed on the Grand National than the next most popular race, the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
And to highlight the appeal of the race to casual punters, some 82% of wagers placed with Entain’s band of bookmakers were for £5 or less. Fewer than 1% of all bets on the Grand National in 2024 exceeded £20.
The race is incredibly important to bookmakers in terms of attracting new customers. Of those betting on the Grand National with Entain, 30% were new sign-ups or those depositing into their account for the first time.
The 2024 Grand National just happened to be a decent race for punters too, with 7/1 joint favourite I Am Maximus justifying his status to land the win and score a decent payout for the betting community.
It was the third time a favourite, or joint favourite, had won the Grand National in the last five years, which suggests that many punters – new and old – will have enjoyed the Aintree spectacle in recent times.
Bowled Over
As per Entain, there were more bets placed on the outcome of Super Bowl LVIII than there were on the Euro 2024 final between England and Spain.
The contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers was not a good one for punters, with the 49ers installed as the betting favourites by the bookmakers.
However, the Chiefs – the defending champions – would become the first franchise to successfully defend their title in two decades with a narrow 25-22 win.
There was some good news for a small subset of punters, mind you: the game went to overtime, which was an eventuality that could be wagered upon at odds of 10/1.
Euros Prove Importance of Major Football Tournaments
The betting markets for Euro 2024 were unusual, to say the least, with England backed in to outright favouritism in the early days of the tournament.
But so impressive were Spain that they actually went off as favourites against England in the final; plenty of patriotic punters remained true to the Three Lions, however.
As if to confirm how important these major football tournaments are to the bookies on a biannual basis, eleven of the fifteen most bet-upon events of the year were contributed by Euro 2024, with England’s games against the Netherlands, Switzerland, Serbia and Slovakia ranking fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth respectively.
Rounding out the Euro 2024 contingent in the top ten was Spain’s semi-final clash with France, which the eventual champions won 2-1 courtesy of goals from Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo.
The perennial appeal of the Champions League was also celebrated by UK based punters. Despite no English presence in the game beyond Jude Bellingham, the final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund still ranked fifth in 2024 for quantity of bets placed.
Golf only had one entry into the entire top 50, but the enduring popularity of The Masters is confirmed by the fact that the tournament was the sixth most bet-upon event of 2024… Scottie Scheffler’s win as the 4/1 market jolly helping to warm the cockles of punters.
Of the top 50 betting events of the year, 34 were in football and 30 at Euro 2024… how the bookies will be rueing the fact that there’s no major international competition in 2025.
The NFL makes eleven entries into Entain’s list, with play-off and regular season games joining the Super Bowl in the big 50, with horse racing (Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Scottish Grand National) offering up three entries.
The only other event to feature in the top 50 not mentioned so far came courtesy of boxing… well, if we can call the snoozefest between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson in November a boxing bout, anyway.