AGA Analyzes Sports Betting Advertising Trends for 2023

The American Gaming Association monitors trends in gaming and sports betting advertising spending and volume.

Understanding the volume of gaming advertising the public sees and hears each year, especially multi-year trends and how gaming ad volume compares to other industries, provides important context to the discussion around sports betting advertising.

The widespread legalization of sports betting brought with it advertising for legal, regulated sportsbooks that compete for consumer attention with illegal offshore books. These illegal operators use deceptive online marketing tactics to bombard bettors with misleading claims about their legal status. Previous AGA research has shown that 70% of sports bettors primarily using offshore sites didn’t realize they were betting with unregulated sportsbooks.

Advertising by legal sportsbooks plays an important role in informing consumers about legitimate betting operators and in migrating those consumers to safe betting options.

As sports betting has expanded into new states, legal operators often launch advertising campaigns to raise awareness of legal sportsbooks and capture market share. Over time, those markets mature and the level of advertising declines. Last year, there were fewer television ads for sports betting than for other familiar products marketed to adults.

In fact, gaming and sports betting advertising volume has been declining in recent years.

SPORTS BETTING TV ADVERTISING VOLUME DOWN ONE-THIRD FROM 2021

• Total advertising spend related to sports betting (including DFS) declined $210 million compared to 2022, a 15% decline. Excluding DFS, sports betting ad spending was down 21% from 2022.
• Sports betting ad volume was down 4% year-over-year across all channels, having contracted 20% from the 2021 peak.
• Advertising volume across TV—the largest category for sports-betting advertisers—declined more—11%—and has decreased 33% since 2021.
• Sports Betting’s share of total TV advertising volume was 0.4% in 2023, slightly lower than Alcohol (0.5%), Telecom/Wireless (1.5%), Fast Food (3.8%) and dwarfed by Pharmaceuticals (14.1%).
• For every sports betting advertisement on TV in 2023, there were more than 3 telecom/wireless commercials, 8 TV spots for fast food, and 31 pharmaceutical commercials.

METHODOLOGY

A Nielsen study, commissioned by the American Gaming Association, analyzed trends around sports betting advertising in the United States in 2023. The research leveraged Ad Intel, Nielsen’s advertising monitoring service for tracking detailed ad spend in markets and media outlets including TV, print, digital, out-of-home and cinema.