Sports betting firms increase U.S. ad spend by 82 percent YoY

MediaRadar released a study on Tuesday that shows that since mid-June 2020, sports betting firms have risen their US advertising spend by 82 percent year-over-year.

The media intelligence platform's figures also showed that the advertising for this industry is highly concentrated, as the top ten gambling brands accounted for 94 percent of the total advertising spend of the whole industry in the last 12 months. Of those ten, FanDuel, Bet365 and DraftKings spent more than US$200 million on marketing in that period, accounting for more than 90 percent of the total.

While that skew is partially related to the delay of key sporting events such as the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Stanley Cup and the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) finals series due to the pandemic, several new states have opened up to sports gambling in that period.

Also, football, a key sport for the nascent US sports betting industry, began its season in September.

The growth of that advertising spend is particularly good news for broadcasters as they dominate the media mix for gambling brands, with more than 90 percent of the betting industry spending its money on traditional media, according to the MediaRadar figures.