A report by television data collection company Nielsen has found that the money spent on advertising online gambling on television has soared in the last three years.
$153.6m was spent on advertising for local spot television in Q1 of 2021 – a staggering 1339.3% increase from the $10.7m spent in 2019. This can be attributed to both the increased legality and popularity of sports betting in the country in the past few years.
$24.8m was spent on national television, $6.0m for network television and cable spending came to $1.2m.
Flutter brand FanDuel was the biggest spender, contributing $57.7m. DraftKings’ total came to $43.6m, and BetMGM rounded out the top three with $24.9m. Nielsen said that all of FanDuel and DraftKings’ spend was advertising the operators’ betting products rather than casino.
An increasing number of gambling ads were found on news programming, which was the most popular programming type for these ads; in 2021 39.0% of gambling ads were placed on news shows, up from 31.0% in Q1 of 2020.
The percentage of ads on sports channels dropped this quarter, down to 14.0% from 19.0% from the same period last year.
FanDuel and DraftKings are among the biggest sports betting brands in the country and have branched out into the media more this year; FanDuel secured a TV partnership with Inside the NBA, while DraftKings’ signed deals with Meadowlark Media and Sling TV.
“The overwhelming sea change across the sports and media industries with respect to betting ads highlights a significant growth opportunity for both local and national television,” Nielsen said.
“In 2020, online/digital sports betting-related ad spend increased across 180 of the 208 designated market areas (DMAs) that Nielsen monitors.
“So even though gambling activities are limited to select states, advertising in this category, where legal, is increasing across the overwhelming majority of the country’s 208 DMAs. And that spells opportunity for local news organizations and advertising agencies alike.”