Last year, Americans legally wagered $95 billion on sports. That’s more than they splashed out on ride sharing, streaming or even coffee.i

More than one in five of the 146 million American adults living in legal sports betting states placed a wager on this year’s March Madness through a regulated operator.ii Throw in those who took part in casual bets with friends and bracket contests and the total hit 68 million – a quarter of the total US adult population.

High-value audience

But snapshots of eye-watering top-line figures only tell part of the story.

This is also about engaging high-value individuals to deliver financial sustainability in a fearsomely competitive landscape – and the profile of a regular punter is hugely attractive for rights-holders, media platforms and gambling operators.

Forty-four percent of sports bettors have an income of more than $100,000 per year – 26% above the average across all US adults.iii iv Additionally, 39% of punters belong to the prime 18 to 35-year-old consumer category, followed by 31% in the 35 to 54-year-old age range.

Igniting engagement

There is also clear evidence that betting ignites engagement in sport itself. The fact that 42% of bettors say that the activity “makes games more exciting” should make publishers sit up and take notice.v

Echoing this, a majority of people who bet on an NFL or NBA game will watch more of the contest than they usually would if they have a wager on the outcome. The same is true for nearly half of those who bet on Major League Baseball or college football.vi

Meanwhile, teams can also benefit from long-lasting engagement opportunities. It is noteworthy, for instance, that more than a quarter of adult sports fans have started following a team after initially betting on their games.vii Two-thirds of sports bettors attended a live sporting event in the past year.viii

Sports bettors also deliver major cross-over benefits for operators who offer other forms of gambling. One study found that 46% of sports bettors also play live casino, with 39% playing video slots – considerably more than the 20% of adults across the total US population who gamble at physical or online casinos at least once a month.ix x

Capturing attention

Given their collective status as a prized target in the sports industry, competition for bettors’ attention is intense. But this is where Sportradar ad:s converts them into engaged viewers, customers and fans.

As a holistic marketing toolkit, ad:s not only offers a comprehensive database of bettors and their behavior; it also facilitates fruitful interactions with individual bettors on their terms.

Innovative ad:s personalization tools, underpinned by artificial intelligence, optimize engagement with a highly targeted audience to make marketing budgets go further and campaigns more compelling.

Through ad:s, real-time odds or ticket offers, for example, can be incorporated into dynamic adverts that are relevant to the end user’s interests, based on the content of an article being read online. But this is just one of a range of impactful ad:s solutions.

Value proposition

With this in mind, evidence of the ad:s value proposition can be found across Sportradar’s portfolio of clients.

Take one NFL franchise as an example, where meaningful incremental value was delivered to the team’s official sports betting partners through ad:s and its proprietary DSP (demand-side platform). Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) targets were beaten by 25%, with a click-through rate that was more than double the industry average.

In another case, ad:s implemented a social campaign with personalized creatives based on historic action for a US betting operator and, as a result, increased first-time deposits 13-fold versus the previous provider’s efforts while slashing CPA by 58%.

If, like many enterprises across the industry, you believe that sports bettors can drive value for your business, then ad:s can supercharge growth like nothing else.

Contact us today to find out more.