Coral Ending Long-running Sponsorship Of Cheltenham Festival Handicap

Coral has actually ended its sponsorship at the Cheltenham Festival, citing wagering tax rises as the reason for bringing its support to an end.


The bookmaker, which belongs to the Entain group, has actually sponsored the Coral Cup given that its beginning in 1993 but following the statement of impending increases to remote gaming responsibility, which is levied on online casino-style video games, and remote wagering task on sports, excluding British racing, it has reassessed its marketing spend.


Simon Clare, Entain's UK consumer PR director, explained the choice to end the Coral Cup sponsorship was made with "some unhappiness", while underlining the requirement for the firm to derive "more worth" from occasions in future.


He said: "Coral has been the longest-running sponsor at the Cheltenham Festival considering that 1974, but the sheer size of the government's current tax increase on wagering operators suggests we are needing to take very hard choices as we aim to mitigate a few of the huge effect, none more difficult or regrettable then bringing our sponsorship at Cheltenham to an end.


"The Jockey Club are strong, long-standing partners of Entain, and although we are stepping away from this sponsorship, we will continue to work passionately and collaboratively with their racecourse teams on the huge sponsorships we have with them under our Ladbrokes and Coral brand names.


"Horse racing remains very essential to Entain, and Coral and Ladbrokes have a few of the most significant and most enduring sponsorships in the calendar, consisting of the Ladbrokes King George, which had one of its finest ever renewals a few weeks back, and the Coral-Eclipse where last year we commemorated 50 years of sponsorship. The Cheltenham Festival is also a huge 4 days for our organization and our consumers, and we will be promoting and celebrating it as much as ever in our shops and online and throughout our marketing channels.


Langer Dan (far right) winning the 2024 Coral Cup (David Davies/Jockey Club)


"However, the considerable change in the tax landscape for wagering operators means we need to drive much more worth out of the events we sponsor, and evaluation with even greater scrutiny where we invest our marketing invest, which has resulted in completion of the Coral Cup ."