Published on 22nd April 2016 by Andrew Mills

Chief Executive of Ladbrokes, Jim Mullen, has described some of the bookmaker’s rivals of “abandoning bookmaking principles” to attempt to win market share during the recent Cheltenham Festival.“We competed hard but refused to pursue unsustainable strategies and our stance remains that we will compete where we know we can get the right returns from the right customers,” added Mullen, suggesting that their competition did not have the same level of focus on sustainable strategies.

Biggest ever range

Ladbrokes announced its “biggest ever range” of Cheltenham offers which included a money-back offer in store and online, as well as refunds for second placed horses in televised events.An abundance of short-priced winners meant that the festival was, according to Ladbrokes, the “worst in living memory”, but claim that Aintree shortly afterwards was substantially better.

Consistent strategy

Despite Cheltenham being an unsuccessful weekend for bookmakers in general, the CEO says that Ladbrokes are still consistently moving in the right direction.In an interview with EGR magazine, Mr Mullen said:”Even at Cheltenham with the extreme race to the bottom we still saw a growth of 23% and 31% in actives and stakes…”He added: “You have to make sure you recruit the right customers and that is why we don’t get involved in high CPAs or big bonus pushes.”Mullen claims that Ladbrokes maintained a consistent strategy for Cheltenham and Aintree, but said that those who had followed the unsustainable strategies earlier mentioned, and had therefore been “hurt”, had been noticeably more cautious at Aintree.