Grand National day is the racing industry’s fiercest operational test, when racing infrastructure has nowhere to hide. Volumes are compressed into a matter of minutes, leaving no room for delay, error or downtime.
This year, Pythia Sports, which provides managed trading services to sportsbook operators, processed 7.4 times its normal Grand National trading volume while still returning first settlements in 2 minutes and 50 seconds, in line with 2025.
Figures recently shared by the company’s CTO, Adrien Tillier, show that the business also completed full settlement nine minutes faster than in 2025, underlining the resilience of its fully managed racing trading service.
The performance follows a year of engineering work across Pythia Sports’ settlement systems. Over the past 12 months, the team has rebuilt the way returns are processed, using Apache Kafka, Amazon Web Services, and Kubernetes to handle peak demand.
Tillier said: “We settled every bet for our fully managed partners with first returns processed within 2 minutes 50 seconds of the race finishing, identical to 2025, while handling 7.4x the volume. Everything settled nine minutes faster than last year.
“That improvement didn’t happen by accident. Credit where it’s due: it’s the engineering team that made it rock solid.
“One race. Seven times the volume. Settled before the post-race interviews ended.”
For sportsbook operators, particularly those assessing outsourced or fully managed racing trading services, the figures provide an operational benchmark on one of the busiest days in the racing calendar.
Stephen Davison, Head of Commercial Operations at Pythia Sports, said: “On the biggest day of the British racing year, our operator partners need certainty. This performance shows the resilience of the infrastructure and trading support we provide when volumes are at their most intense.”
