LAS VEGAS — Sportsbooks don’t so much advertise their arrival in states that launch legal betting.
They scream it. They did so in the immediate years after the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which allowed each state to legalize the industry. And despite threatened pushback, actual pushback, and the real-time European cautionary tale of potential consequences, they’ve continued to do so.
In a polarized nation, 40 US jurisdictions have united in scowling at these 30-second TV pitches.
It’s an omni-channel onslaught. Promotional offers, “free bets,” deposit matches, celebrity spokespersons. On television. On radio. On Instagram feeds. On the city bus.
And even though gambling companies rarely dent the top 10 in national ad impressions during sporting events, they manage to engender more fatigue than dancing Jardiance patients, Flo or Jake from State Farm. All this despite a drastic reduction in ad spend in recent years.
It’s more about the line than the lines, Andrew Descovich, the director of media strategy at Zoomph told Gaming Today at the Sports Entertainment Innovation Conference in July.
“There’s never a perfect line or any statistic that you can do this much, but here everyone gets mad.”
“I think each consumer is different,” he said. “I think the conception is, the more they’re exposed, the more likely they build an association.”
Association means patronage. And that means billions in an ultra-competitive sports betting industry.
Adam Wohl, whose marketing companies have worked with eight of the top 10 global brands, said understanding and reaching an audience “without being overbearing” is difficult. Especially so, he said, when pitching a product that is considered taboo by an unknown but substantial portion of that audience.
“I think a thing for gambling that can sometimes be a turnoff is that the model they use, to a certain degree, is a little bit of a drug dealer model, which is to give you a lot of stuff free to get their hooks in you and then they have you,” Wohl told Gaming Today.
While sportsbooks grope for the appropriate tone to appeal to the coveted 25-to-45-year-old demographic, the message may be getting distorted by the volume. While the NFL limits the amount of sportsbook ads that can be aired on national telecasts, local and regional ad buys multiply their presence.
Expert: Annoying Multitudes Probably Worth It
Descovich acknowledged that sportsbook advertising is “in your face.”
But alienating a casual sports fan who may never become a frequent or loyal customer could be worth the aggressiveness to reach a more likely future patron, he posited.
“There is so much competition between the books to be the first user because the research shows the book you pick first generally is where you’re going to stay,” he said. “So that acquisition cost is so high for the first-timer.”
“Fans [can be] off-put, but it’s effective. I think there’s a balance of books looking at it and going, ‘This is working.’”
This is a long-understood concept within the industry.
FanDuel strategic advisor Kip Levin said at the 2021 Global Gaming Expo that the industry then was “trying to use television to build a category from scratch” because “everybody’s trying to get the early adopters because your early customers tend to be the better customers.”
Grab for Customers Increases the Volume
Especially those who need little indoctrination.
An American Gaming Association report suggested vastly improved attitudes toward the legal gambling industry, and another report predicted $35 billion would be wagered legally on the NFL in the US this season. While those are sizeable claims, if correct, a weighty sector of the population would remain either uninterested or abstinent.
With a recent Optimove study asserting that 68% of NFL bettors utilize multiple sportsbook apps, brands hustle to harvest the interested.
That doesn’t placate the disinterested.
“There is a portion of the sports fandom and audience who goes, ‘Oh, this ruins the integrity of the game.’ And there’s people like myself — and I think many — who went, ‘Oh no, this is going to be a vehicle to drive fandom,'” Descovich said. “Those who were on the other side of the fence saying ‘This ruins sports,’ were not going to gamble.
“[Sportsbooks] wanted to get the casual fan who said, ‘Hey, I’m going to turn on the West Coast game in New York. I’ll throw five bucks on it, and I’ll enjoy.’ Those are who they were going after, not the person who’s sitting saying to get off their lawn.”
Wohl believes that a sports bet by a fan on their team can serve the same purpose as a jersey or hat.
“What’s great about it is it still allows people who are huge fans to show their allegiance and their loyalty, and that power of association is so powerful,” he said. “It’s a deeper relationship that they have with the brands that they love, the teams that they love.
“It’s an extension of fandom, support for a team, and being a part of something bigger.”
Sports Betting Ads Not as Prevalent as Perception … Sort Of
Data analyzed by iSpot.tv, which measures the effectiveness and performance of television ads, suggests the din should quiet slightly after Week 3 of the NFL season. According to statistics provided to Gaming Today, sportsbooks ranked seventh in the percentage of commercials aired for the first two weeks of the 2023 NFL season and eighth in Week 3 on national linear TV games. The percentages dropped precipitously thereafter. Even in these most active weeks, sportsbook ads accounted for only around 3% of commercials.
These ads spiked again around the beginning of the playoffs, but were relegated to 20th when other brands began buying up precious Super Bowl airwaves.
For Week 1 of this season, sportsbooks ranked ninth, with a 3.18% share of TV commercials. ISpot.tv data showed that sportsbooks had spent 15% less on linear TV ads through the first two weeks of this season as compared to 2023. Sportsbook ads consumed 66 minutes of air total airtime during that span, equating to 132 commercials.
According to NFL sports betting general manager David Highhill, the NFL limits the number of sports betting ads on national broadcasts to roughly one per quarter or “less than 5%.” However, the iSpot.tv statistics account only for national broadcasts and don’t consider ads aired locally or regionally.
The national ad buys were made almost entirely by BetMGM, DraftKings and FanDuel and aren’t contained to states where those sportsbooks operate. Numerous DraftKings and FanDuel ads aired on Sunday NFL broadcasts in Florida, where Hard Rock Bet is the only legal option.
Ads Still Drawing Federal Attention
I haven’t seen an online sports betting ad in almost 7 minutes. Am I dead?
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) January 9, 2022
Even with the AGA issuing a marketing code of conduct for its membership and leagues pledging to self-limit the amount of sports betting ads, several states have passed regulations to placate their constituencies. And the cause continues to attract federal attention.
On Sept. 12, U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) announced the Supporting Affordability & Fairness with Every Bet Act, which includes restrictions on advertising. The so-called SAFE Bet Act would limit when sports betting ads could be aired to safeguard children and curtail the use of celebrity endorsers.
A failed 2023 House bill sponsored by Tonko was also designed to contain “unfettered advertisements” that he believed “have run rampant” and improve responsible gambling measures.
Brands must therefore be proactive, Wohl said, in demonstrating their commitment to responsible practices through not only action, but in advertising. Responsible gambling messaging has increased markedly in recent years.
“I think obviously they have a responsibility to share their desire for responsibility,” he said. “I don’t want to necessarily compare it to cigarettes, but cigarettes have to put a warning on the package. There are certain people who have addictive tendencies. And I think there’s a responsibility to take care of those people and make sure that they’re being responsible.
“With great development, there’s accountability and responsibility. And I think that as long as they’re doing things in a healthy way, then I think it’s OK.”
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