Bookmakers Take Pasting

The online performance of this year's top ten Grand National bookmakers will put a dampener on Post-Aintree celebrations, website performance data published today has claimed.

As investors in British Bookmakers breathed a sigh of relief as Numbersixvalverde prevented the joint favourites from romping home, saving them from huge payouts, consistent errors plaguing put a shadow of doubt on their financial performance, according to web testing firm thinkTribe.

Bookmakers Take Pasting on Grand National

The research showed that 7 out of 10 of the bookmakers websites tested exceeded the industry average of 0.01 per cent for errors over the three week period leading up to the Grand National.

One bookmaker effectively being out of the online race to capture punters for six hours in a week. During this period people were unable to login to place bets!

Out of the five leading high street bookmakers tested, the BetDirect, William Hill and SkyBet websites were the best performers showing the least web site errors overall.

With a total of more than £250m staked on the Grand National industry-wide, bookmakers can't afford to have such a crippling performance online,' said Deri Jones, CEO, SciVisum.

The race showed the increasing status of the Grand National in the country's affections, which presents a massive financial opportunity to online bookmakers.

Alarmingly, the study pointed to ìa definitive slow down' of website performance on the day of the Grand National itself, with one web site slowing down by more than 230%.

As gamblers rushed online to place last minute bets and get results of the race on the day, the research showed that overall the websites peaked in user logins during 12.00pm and 8.00pm.