FEATURE16 August 2017

A safe bet

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Bronwen Morgan

Features Impact Leisure & Arts UK

At Paddy Power Betfair, 5,000 people counts as a qualitative sample. Katherine Feres, the company’s head of market data and insight, talks to Bronwen Morgan about how she’s working to persuade executives of the power of small samples.

Cheltenham

Gathering a sample of gamblers can be challenging. Just 16% of the UK adult population have placed a bet in the past 12 months, and only 7% do so on a monthly basis, according to Katherine Feres, head of market data and insight at betting group Paddy Power Betfair.

Feres is one of those 16%, but can only count herself among them since she started at the company in 2013. “I wasn’t a gambler before I joined Paddy Power Betfair but, for me, whatever category you work in you have to experience it as a customer – so now I dabble in gambling from time to time.” 

Feres joined Paddy Power from Procter & Gamble, where she had worked in consumer and market knowledge roles across several divisions, including oral care, feminine care, fragrances and skin care. In February 2016, just two years after she joined, Paddy Power merged with Betfair – but this, and the fact that ...