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March 2014 Bookmaker Of The Month Goes To Paddy PowerFIND THE BEST BETTING EVERY DAY AT

WWW.FREEBETS.COM

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2March proved a great month for sports bettors with a plethora of high value Money Back offers and once again Paddy Power swept the accolades winning Bookmaker Of The Month and Money Back Offer Of The Month. Monthly analysis of Money Back offers on Freebets.com revealed Paddy Power pulled off the ‘double’ for the fourth time having similar success in June, August and September 2013.

• Main rival in the honours list, bet365 came runner up for Bookmaker Of The Month and Stan James continued its rise up the rankings to claim third place previously occupied by William Hill.

• Just as anticipated, after a relatively quiet month in February, bookmakers saved some of the best offers for Cheltenham Festival. The popularity of the festival makes it an important time for player recruitment and along with high profile Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup football, punters were offered some great insurance with valuable Money Back offers galore. However, it was a novelty offer that really got tongues wagging in March, with Paddy Power at the centre of a media storm.

• The Irish bookmaker is no stranger to publicity stunts but ran into trouble with parliamentarians and the Advertising Standards Agency over its Money Back offer on the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa. Paddy Power was so taken by the global hype surrounding the celebrity trial, it opened a market on the verdict and offered Money Back if the former paralympian walks free. Within hours of advertising the offer in newspapers and on social media campaigners began a petition to have the adverts removed. Paddy Power eventually conceded but not before creating huge publicity.

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Freebets.com, the UK sports betting service produces a monthly report with analysis comparing all Money Back offers presented on its website. The Bookmaker Of The Month is determined by application of an algorithm which gives a cumulative rating for 19 participating bookmakers.

• March 2014 saw a healthy increase in the number of Money Back offers, much of the promotional activity focused on racing at the Cheltenham Festival but football offers proved to be the most valuable to punters.

• It’s the time of year when champions begin to emerge and there was no shortage of high profile clashes with the advent of the Champions League knockout phase, FA Cup quarter-finals and head-to-head encounters between title contenders in the Premier League and La Liga.

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4The Top 10 Findings From Freebets.com March 2014 Money Back Offers Report

• Paddy Power ranked March 2014 Bookmaker Of The Month ahead of bet365 in second place and Stan James in third.

• Paddy Power has now won the Bookmaker Of The Month accolade six times, bet365 has won it four times and Ladbrokes once, records began in May 2013.

• Paddy Power provided an unprecedented eight of the Top Ten Money Back Offers in March 2014, to beat its previous record of seven which it had achieved on three previous occasions

• Paddy Power provided 25 Unique Offers (ranked 1st) and 63 Total Offers (ranked 5th).

• Paddy Power’s ‘Money Back if Messi scores’ (v Real Madrid) offer is rated Money Back Offer Of The Month in March 2014.

• The controversial ‘Money Back if Oscar Pistorius walks free’ was the most likely free bet trigger in March 2014.

• Total Bookmaker Offers rose to 726 in March 2014, a 27% increase on the previous month.

• William Hill had the highest number of Total Bookmaker Offers (95) followed by Betway (91) and Betfair (84).

• Unique Offers in March 2014 increased to 105, the highest since June 2013 and the first time the 100 mark has been reached since October.

• The number of bookmakers offering exclusive Mobile Money Back Offers remained unchanged on four.

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March 2014 Bookmaker Of The Month

• Paddy Power won Bookmaker Of The Month for the sixth time, providing the most Unique Offers and was responsible for eight of the top ten individual Money Back offers in the Offer Of The Month table, creating a new record in an area the Irish bookmaking giant has dominated since monitoring began in May 2013.

• With 25 Unique Offers, more than twice the number of nearest competitor Betfred, Paddy Power was a convincing winner in March. Not only did the Dublin-based company provide more Unique Offers than anyone else it raised the value of many of them by increasing the likelihood of the Money Back trigger occurring.

• Paddy Power only ranked fifth for Total Bookmaker Offers in March (63) but the comparative value of the offers meant the competition fell someway short of denying Paddy Power another Bookmaker Of The Month award.

• We’ve seen bet365 vie with Paddy Power every month and this time the Stoke-based online bookmaker had to settle for second place. bet365 relied on its staple Money Back offers, ‘Bore Draw’, ‘Channel 4/1’, ‘Feature Race 4/1’ and ‘Sky Dogs 2/1’. They guarantee the bookmaker will feature highly in the rankings each month because they apply to so many events and Freebets.com can reveal the Channel 4/1 offer is one of the biggest drivers of traffic to its website.

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6• Stan James has been climbing the rankings for the last three months by adding more variety to its football promotions. It has supplemented the season-long ‘Bore Draw’ offer with ‘FA Cup 2/1’ free bets and its ‘Just A Second’ offer giving Money Back on losing first goal scorer bets if the player scores the second goal. In March, Stan James also offered Red Card Refunds on the three big football matches to further its standing in Freebets.com rankings.

• Similarly, William Hill’s ‘Acca Insurance’, ‘Bore Draw’, ‘Goal Scorer Second Chance’ and ‘Money Back Second for Mobile’ combine to achieve high scores whenever there is lots of football and horse racing, which nowadays is almost every month of the year.

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7• Four of the 19 featured bookmakers, Betway, Stan James, Ladbrokes and William Hill offered mobile exclusive Money Back Specials again in March 2014 and we’ve not seen any change in this regard for the past four months. The table below shows the rankings when Mobile Exclusive Money Back offers are removed.

• The Mobile Exclusive table shows how bookmakers rank for Mobile Exclusive Money Back offers

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8Money Back Offer Of The Month

• Money Back Offer Of The Month is rated on the maximum refund value and the chance of a payout which determines the individual offer giving most value to punters. There are no weightings applied for event and market types, and factors such as the number of events for which the offer is available are not taken into account.

• Paddy Power took the top five positions in March rankings and occupied eight places, the most top ten slots on record. The Money Back Offer Of The Month was on El Classico, the match between Real Madrid and Barcelona in La Liga. The game proved to be a thriller and the 4-3 score line caught out the vast majority of correct score punters.But, Paddy Power offered money back if Lionel Messi scored at anytime in the match and the Argentine scored a hat trick to guarantee up to £100 refunds all round for Paddy Power customers.

• The only other companies to feature in the top ten were bet365 with its Sky Dogs 2/1 offer and Stan James who offered Red Card Refunds on the Manchester derby.

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9• The maximum free bet value of most Money Back offers varies between £25 and £50 which makes it

almost impossible for some bookmakers to rank highly in the Money Back Offer Of The Month table. When ranked purely on the likelihood of losing bets meeting the free bet trigger, the table portrays a very different story, as shown below. Although Paddy Power topped this table too with its controversial offer on the Oscar Pistorius trial.

• Here we can see three Cheltenham offers that stood a good chance of being triggered, Ladbrokes’ Money Back if Hurricane Fly finished 2nd or 3rd in the Champion Hurdle and Money Back if Annie Power won the World Hurdle while Sky Bet offered Money Back if the favourite won the first race each day of the Festival.

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10General Findings

• The total number of Bookmaker Offers available in March 2014 was 726, the third highest since monitoring began in May 2013 and 27% increase on the previous month. The highest was 780 in January 2014 followed by 732 in November 2013.

• William Hill, Betway and Betfair are major contributors to Total Offers. In March, William Hill counted 95, Betway 91 and Betfair 84.

• Hills provide money back on Bore Draws and Second Chance goal scorers on every football match plus acca insurance almost every day. Betway provide a suite of promotions covering NBA, NHL, Rugby Union and football and while the offer value is low compared to Paddy Power’s Money Back offers, they are available on a wide range of events and betting markets. Betfair feature Cashback Extra giving customers the choice of five cashback triggers, the offer is provided on feature races, Super Sunday football, Champions League plus occasional golf tournaments and other sports. Combined with acca insurance on 12X and Both Teams To Score coupons, making the sportsbook is another big player when it comes to availability of offers.

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12• Paddy Power provided the most Unique Offers in March 2014 with 25 which was 13 more than its nearest competitor, Betfred with 12. The good news in March was the arrest of a falling trend going back to October 2013 when there were 100 Unique Offers available from participating online bookmakers. Thanks to Cheltenham and the amount of top quality football action, the number rose to 103 in March, the highest since June 2013.

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About The Analysis

• www.freebets.com conducts in-depth analysis of Money Back offers promoted on the websites of leading online bookmakers every month. The list of monitored bookmakers reads; 10Bet, 188BET, 888sport, bet365, Betfair Sportsbook, Betfred, BetVictor, Betway, Boylesports, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Sportingbet, Stan James, Titan Bet, Unibet, William Hill and Winner. The analysis focused specifically on Money Back offers and other promotions such as bonuses, concessions and guarantees are not included.

• ‘Money Back’ is a widely accepted term in the betting industry for real cash and free bet refunds on selected events and markets offered as insurance against a scenario proposed by the bookmaker. A typical example of Money Back in December was a refund offered on losing World Championship Darts Outright Winner bets if Phil Taylor won the tournament, i.e ‘Money Back if Phil Taylor Wins’.

• The report introduced analysis of mobile exclusive offers from 1st July 2013 in addition to those promoted via bookmakers’ main websites which are available to both web and mobile customers. Retail offers are not included.

• In order to determine its Bookmaker of the Month for Money Back Offers, www.freebets.com uses an algorithm which takes into account the number of offers available, the maximum free bet or cash refund value and the likelihood of the scenario to come true in addition to the number of events and range of markets which qualify for the offer. The www.freebets.com team draws on over 50 years’ experience in the betting industry to attribute weightings for the various factors in the formula in order to provide comparative values to the complex array of promotions.

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DISCLAIMER

• Whilst every effort is taken to prepare detailed and accurate information, any third party relying on this information does so entirely at their own risk.