The Ryder Cup: A gateway to new golf bettors
As the Ryder Cup heads to Bethpage Black for 2025, Gareth Crook, SVP of Sports at Pragmatic Play, explores how sportsbooks can harness the event’s unique format and mass appeal to attract new bettors, convert casual fans, and build long-term engagement across the calendar year.
“My first memory of watching golf goes back to 1991 when Ian Woosnam won the Masters. As an 11-year-old Welsh kid, I could not have been prouder: a Welsh golfer winning a major for the very first time. Only later did I learn that Woosnam was actually born just over the border in England, making his Welshness a subject of debate. Still, as any Welsh sports fan knows, we will happily claim it!
Golf has always felt personal to me. Terry Matthews, from the same South Wales village I grew up in, went on to make his fortune in Canada before fulfilling a lifelong dream: bringing the Ryder Cup to Wales when Celtic Manor hosted the tournament in 2010. For a small community of 6,500 people, that connection to one of sport’s greatest events felt extraordinary.
And that is the thing about the Ryder Cup. Whether you follow golf religiously or not, the event is etched into sporting folklore. It is theatre, emotion, and national pride rolled into three days every two years. You do not just watch the Ryder Cup; you feel it.
To most sportsbook operators, golf is a minor contributor in the overall product mix. Football, basketball, and tennis dominate revenues and marketing focus. Yet, five times a year, the picture changes: the four majors and the Ryder Cup every two years capture attention well beyond golf’s usual audience. At these moments, even bettors who normally focus on the big three sports are drawn into golf markets.
For operators, this creates both opportunity and disruption. Marketing and retention teams must pivot quickly to capture wallet share; the default playbook of place versus price wars in the UK is not enough. In the United States, golf is already proving a major acquisition tool; events like the Ryder Cup have introduced a new generation of sports fans to betting on golf. This appeal has been accelerated by the availability of fast-path data: feeds that allow a bettor to follow their golfer and see ball location on the course in real time with ultra-low latency.
The conundrum for operators is clear: other sports drive higher consistent revenues, yet the Ryder Cup forces a rethink. Investing in golf product strategy can feel like a diversion from the core business, but failure to act risks losing engagement when global attention is focused on one of sport’s most compelling events.
As someone who bets on golf myself and as someone who has sat on the operator side dictating a majors or Ryder Cup strategy, I have seen first-hand the sudden impact these events create. Betting activity during the majors or the Ryder Cup can be at least ten times higher than during a regular tour event. The appeal in the UK is obvious: place terms rule the roost. Marketing teams push for extra places and a clear headline message; trading teams, meanwhile, often despair at the impact on margin. Week after week golf books are over-broke, creating huge value for the customer.
If the pre-tournament pricing strategy attracts customers, the real opportunity comes once play begins. A slick in-play product can help claw back margin. Place terms and early prices may favour the bettor heavily before the first ball is struck; once in play, the dynamics change and pricing can be set more cautiously.
The Ryder Cup itself creates a different kind of challenge. Each-way betting disappears and the format reduces to straightforward head-to-head markets. This simplicity makes it easier for non-golf bettors to engage. For trading teams, however, the challenge lies in the short windows available to price matches once captains announce their pairings, often close to the deadline. Speed and accuracy become paramount, with odds needing to be created and risk overseen in a matter of minutes.
Golf will only ever appeal strongly in certain jurisdictions, which creates a challenge for Pragmatic Play as a B2B sports provider. The reality is that while golf produces world-class players from Latin America, Spain, Germany, and many other regions, the sport does not generate consistent betting interest in those markets. I have rarely seen a Latin American operator dedicate focus to golf in the way that UK or North American operators do.
This geographic divide matters. For UK operators, the majors and the Ryder Cup are significant calendar moments; for US operators, the growth of legal sports betting has put golf firmly on the acquisition radar. By contrast, in many European or Latin American markets, the sport remains peripheral despite the quality of players produced there.
The Ryder Cup is the exception that proves the rule. It is a truly global event, televised almost everywhere, and capable of capturing the imagination of even casual sports fans. For operators, the challenge is to balance investment in golf product innovation against the reality that only certain jurisdictions will ever deliver strong returns. Yet, when the Ryder Cup arrives, the potential audience is vast, and sportsbooks that present a compelling product have the chance to reach well beyond their usual base.
Speed to market will be of the essence during the Ryder Cup: availability of pricing, competitiveness of pricing, and the quality of the user experience will all be decisive. Operators will crave a tightly contested event where the tournament hangs in the balance right down to the final singles matches on Sunday; such a scenario drives engagement, turnover, and retention.
For Pragmatic Play, the Ryder Cup offers both opportunity and a test. We will be watching closely to see whether the event generates meaningful engagement for our operator base outside the UK and Ireland. The appeal of golf betting in new territories remains uncertain; whether the Ryder Cup can convert global television audiences into active bettors is still an open question.
What is certain is that when sportsbooks treat golf with the same attention and innovation as the bigger sports, the rewards can be substantial. The Ryder Cup provides the perfect stage to prove it.”
