2024 Sports Betting Advertising Trends
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.
In fact, sports betting advertising volume has been falling for years and in 2024 there were nearly 50 percent fewer sports betting ads on TV than there were in 2021.
- Sports betting advertising volume across all channels was down 9% in 2024 and is down 27% from 21
- Sports betting television advertising volume fell 17% in 2024 and decreased by 44% from 2021.
- Sports Betting’s share of total TV advertising volume was 0.4% in 2024, flat from the prior year and remained lower than Alcohol (0.5%) and is dwarfed by Pharmaceuticals (13.6%).
- For every sports betting advertisement on TV in 2024, there were more than 4 telecom/wireless commercials and 38 pharmaceutical commercials.
Methodology
A Nielsen study, commissioned by the American Gaming Association, analyzed trends around sports betting advertising in the United States in 2024. 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.