Sports Betting

You’ve heard the sensation—the newest way to put it all on black, sports betting. 

Now, sports betting itself has been around for decades, with one of the most popular being horse races, such as the Kentucky Derby. People would fly out from thousands of miles away just to put it all on one player and see if you win. 

Now, that same mindset has shifted towards every other sport: football, soccer, hockey—you name it, there’s a way to bet on it.

But again, this isn’t new, people have been able to bet on sports events for the longest time so, what changed?

The difference is where players can bet. Before, people needed to go to a casino (a select few casinos) to submit a bet, making it so only the most hardcore or dedicated betters would throw down some money. 

Sports betters line up to place their bets as games play overhead on giant screens at the Superbook at Westgate in Las Vegas on Thursday, March 15, 2018. Patrick Connolly Las Vegas Review-Journal @PConnPie

However, rules have changed, and now, people can bet from the comfort of their own homes, all with online betting sites. FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM—there are hundreds of new online betting sites giving everyone and their mother an opportunity to win big. But what sparked this movement and helped it grow so big?

Well, that’s due to legislation and some good marketing.

Back in 2018, the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, allowing every state to make its own decisions about sports betting.

Before that, it was illegal in every state besides Nevada. This made it so that only hardcore fans (or gamblers) would ever place bets on the games.

Since this change, the entire world, or rather Thirty-five states and Washington, D.C., has legalized sports betting, making it as easy as pressing a button on your phone to place a bet.

But what really helped catapult this? A blitz marketing campaign. 

If you’ve been alive and living in one of these thirty-five states, you have seen the ads. Whether on cable, streaming, YouTube, Instagram, you name it, there are ads on it. 

It derives from this strategy of essentially blitzing the marketing with so many ads that eventually, you’ll check it out because you’ve seen it so much.

More recently, Temu employed this strategy for their Super Bowl commercials, buying out four seven-million-dollar thirty-second ad slots, totaling roughly $28 million.

The problem? It works. 

For Temu, they didn’t even make four ads; they just replayed the same ad four times, which in itself wasn’t even that highly produced of an ad; it was closer to a generic 30-second YouTube ad you skip over before watching a video. 

But it doesn’t matter. By just sending more and more ads, eventually, people just get interested enough to download it to try, and for a mobile app, the barrier to enter isn’t very high, making it easy to get sucked in.

That’s what the two biggest players in the sports betting field, FanDuel and DraftKings, are trying to do.

Ad after ad, no matter where you go. These sites will even give you money to try it, up to $100-200, cause all they need is for you to download it to your phone. Out of the 7.8 million new users who downloaded FanDuel in 2022, 1.5 million became active users, converting almost a fifth of all users who tried it. 

But how are these platforms able to dish out millions upon millions of dollars in ads? Because the second they convert a new user, they start making it all back. 

If we take a step back, casinos are already a lucrative business. They drive millions of people a year, with most usually losing money.

Writer J.B. Maverick of Investopedia.com discusses this, saying, “In 2013, The Wall Street Journal gained access to a private gambling database, which revealed that just 13.5% of gamblers end up winning.” 

And the longer you spend throwing your money down, the closer you get to being down and the house gaining cash on you.

The same goes for these betting sites like FanDuel and DraftKings. By giving you a couple hundred dollars to play with, you’ll eventually get lucky and win, making you want to keep gambling to win again. But by that point, you’ll need to add money since you lost whatever you started with, laying the seeds to make you more gambling addicted and lose all your money in the process. 

And it works. In 2022, FanDuel generated over $3 billion in revenue, with almost $30 billion wagered on its platform. 

It’s with this lucrative profit that enables these betting platforms to send more ads out, find new users, and get anybody and everybody on their app. They have no target demographic. They have no boundaries.

So they’ll market to anybody who has eyes and a bank account.

Even established institutions are joining the mix, with ESPN launching ESPN Bets, a new segment on their network that solely discusses the odds of games and players and sends viewers to download the ESPN Bets app to gamble on said games.

FanDuel US Sports Betting Market Share

However, marketing is how companies grow to number one, and it is why FanDuel and DraftKings stand so far ahead of the pack in market share, housing 68% of all online sports betting transactions. 

By starting the game early and dishing out the money for every ad slot, they grew into the behemoths they are today, untouchable in the eyes of competitors. 

So, next time you want to promote your brand and stand out from the pack, try dumping millions of dollars of investor money into ads. 

It usually works out.

If you or someone you know is struggling with a gambling problem, help is available. The National Council on Problem Gambling provides a range of resources, including answers to commonly asked questions, a gambling behavior self assessment, information about treatment and the National Problem Gambling Helpline (1-800-GAMBLER) to help connect you with local resources.

Curry, D. (2024, January 8). FanDuel revenue and Usage Statistics (2024). Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/fanduel-statistics/

Hernandez, J. (2022, June 18). Sports betting ads are everywhere. some worry gamblers will pay a steep price. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/18/1104952410/sports-betting-ads-sports-gambling

Maverick, J. B. (2023, September 18). Why does the house always win? A look at casino profitability. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/110415/why-does-house-always-win-look-casino-profitability.asp

Neiger, C. (2024, February 5). Casino stats: Why gamblers rarely win. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0910/casino-stats-why-gamblers-rarely-win.aspx

Press, A. (2018, March 20). Leagues, casinos lobby states for cut of sports betting. Journal. https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/betting/leagues-casinos-lobby-states-for-cut-of-sports-betting/