With the conclusion of Euro 2020 just over three weeks ago now, it is safe to say that it lived up to the expectations as the biggest tournament of the year. Across the 31 days, it gave us everything: from France exiting the tournament to Switzerland and a record number of own goals being scored to Ronaldo winning (sharing) the Golden Boot and England losing on penalties, again.
Here at Kindred, the tournament also provided us with some interesting trends and insights. We have a closer look at three of the standouts below:
Building on Bet Builder
Since the start of the 20/21 football season, governing bodies have opted for a more staggered weekly fixture list, due to the impact of Covid-19. With domestic matches now being played at different times to one another, the Bet Builder coupons (more than one outcome from one event) have increasingly flourished, as customers look to replace the typical combination betting with combinations on one match. This momentum continued through to the Euros, where Bet Builder made up 14% of all pre-match bets and 10.3% overall.
As the end of the tournament approached and the number of matches declined, Bet Builder proved its popularity with our customers again. Producing an average of 21% of all pre-match bets across the semi-finals and final.
Having been one of the most consistent performers in international football since 2018 and continuing this marvellous run through the Euros, it was almost inevitable that Italy would end up as the most-backed team in the Bet Builder coupons. Lukaku took the accolade of being the most favoured player by our customers, even though Belgium exited at the QF stage.
Not all about the Outright
It is no secret that the outright bet is almost always the most popular bet type. However, we have seen an increased interest in specific player events happening in matches.
Our player bets during the tournament were a fantastic example of this, proving to be extremely popular, particularly in the later stages. It’s probably no surprise that Ronaldo, Lukaku and Kane were the overall favourites of our customers to back for goals in matches.
The coveted Player of the Tournament award did end up catching (most) people out. While De Bruyne lead the way with 12% of the bets, it was in fact Donnarumma who took the trophy home as the first ‘official’ goalkeeper to win the prestigious award with only 1% of the bets (UEFA have Schmeichel in 1992 as an unofficial winner, due to the award only officially starting in 1996)
Overall, 87% of players have said that they were either Satisfied or Very Satisfied with our "wide selection of offers per match, interested in betting on".
Give us a draw
It’s not uncommon that the draw is the least played outcome on the match winner market. The knockout stages of the Euros proved to be highly competitive, giving us eight matches of extra time.
It was coming home or going to Rome. England were odds favourites prior to the game but did not receive the most bets. Instead, the Unibet customer went for Italy to win with 64% of the bets and the draw with 18%.
Notably, the bet offer ‘lifting the trophy’ was more popular than ever, which could have been due to all the draws. The confidence, however, remained firmly behind Italy, as pre-match they had 81% of the bets to bring it Rome and, once the match was underway, picked up 78% of the live bets for the same outcome.
Read more about Euros and reflections from our Head of Sportsbook here.
