Who Represents the Sports Betting Industry in 2026

The sports betting industry runs on four separate representation layers: creative agencies for advertising, PR firms for brand and regulatory communications, lobbying and public affairs shops for legislation, and gaming law firms for licensing. The Casinos/Gambling industry spent $49,090,763 on federal lobbying in 2025, per OpenSecrets, while DraftKings and FanDuel alone put more than $72 million into a single super PAC for the 2026 midterms.

Which ad agencies handle sportsbook creative?

Arts & Letters is FanDuel's lead creative agency, succeeding Wieden+Kennedy, according to Ad Age's June 18, 2025 report, and Cape is BetMGM's agency of record, according to Adweek. These agency-of-record relationships sit separately from the lobbying and legal representation covered below, and they answer to a sportsbook's marketing organization rather than its government-affairs or legal team.

A sportsbook's PR agency layer is covered in more depth in Best Sports Betting Marketing Agencies, which compares the PR, creative and media agencies with documented betting clients and maps the affiliate networks and sports-data platforms that make up the marketing side of the industry.

How little does the industry spend on PR relative to lobbying?

U.S. gambling operators spent $3.9 billion on marketing in 2025 but directed only a small fraction of it to earned media and PR, according to 5WPR's Gaming Trust Index, published April 2026 by CEO Matt Caiola. Television advertising took the largest share at $1.42 billion, celebrity and athlete partnerships took $520 million, and responsible gambling programs received $60 million, a ratio the index calls out directly.

5W's companion Responsible Gambling Communications Audit, published May 2026, found BetMGM and MGM Resorts engaged state regulators on responsible gambling topics unprompted in 9 of 12 states studied, the highest rate of any operator. DraftKings engaged in 8 of 12 states, FanDuel in 7 of 12, and Caesars Sportsbook and Caesars Entertainment in 6 of 12, while every other operator studied engaged in fewer than 3 of 12. That gap in proactive regulator communications is the PR-side mirror of the lobbying gap covered next.

Why did DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics leave the American Gaming Association?

DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics left the American Gaming Association (AGA) before launching prediction market products, according to Sportico's reporting in April 2026. Traditional sportsbooks with brick-and-mortar casino ties, including PENN Entertainment and BetMGM, stayed with the AGA, which opposes federally regulated prediction markets, along with tribal gaming groups bracing to fight them.

DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics, and BetMGM instead concentrate their lobbying inside the Sports Betting Alliance (SBA), a trade group they founded in 2021 that takes a neutral position on prediction markets rather than opposing them. The AGA-aligned side has answered with its own public affairs operation: Gambling Is Not Investing, a campaign led by Mick Mulvaney, formerly Donald Trump's acting White House chief of staff, built specifically to fight prediction-market expansion on behalf of traditional casino and tribal gaming interests.

How much did sportsbooks spend on midterms?

The Casinos/Gambling industry spent $49,090,763 on federal lobbying in 2025, the highest total OpenSecrets has recorded for the sector. Caesars Entertainment reported $760,613 in 2024 lobbying spend and $115,778 in campaign contributions that cycle, per its OpenSecrets organization profile. FanDuel's own federal lobbying spend rose to $1.1 million in 2025, roughly seven times its 2024 budget, while DraftKings doubled its federal spending to $900,000, per OpenSecrets data reported by Gaming America in April 2026.

State and campaign-level spending has scaled even further. DraftKings and FanDuel, joined by Fanatics and bet365, put more than $72 million into the Win for America super PAC for the 2026 midterms, according to PYMNTS and American Bazaar reporting from April and July 2026. Win for America funds two affiliated PACs, American Future for Democratic primaries and American Conservative Fund for Republican primaries, and has already spent roughly $12 million in Georgia state races alone.

New York shows the same pattern at the state level. The Sports Betting Alliance ranked among the top lobbying spenders in the state's record $213 million 2026 lobbying total, and DraftKings and FanDuel fund a New York-specific PAC that has paid the Parkside Group, the same firm that lobbies for the SBA in Albany, according to Bettors Insider's August 2026 reporting.

Prediction-market platforms are now bidding against that spending directly. Kalshi spent $990,000 on lobbying in the first half of 2026 alone, almost matching its full 2025 total of $1 million, and $1.8 million when outside firms are included, according to CNBC's July 2026 reporting. The arms race between Kalshi, Polymarket, and the casino and gaming sector is now a defining feature of gambling-industry public affairs spending, not a side issue to it.

Which law firms handle sports betting licensing and regulation?

Ifrah Law, based in Washington, D.C., is nationally ranked by Chambers USA in Gaming and Licensing Law and represents FanDuel, Sportradar, Bet365, Playtech, and Worldpay. Founding partner A. Jeff Ifrah's firm was involved in building the original legislative and regulatory frameworks in Delaware, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, the first states to permit online gaming, and Ifrah Law also serves as Special Internet Counsel for the Delaware State Lottery.

Duane Morris LLP runs a global gaming practice that advised on the ESPN BET launch, the branded sportsbook partnership between ESPN and William Hill that went live in at least 16 legalized states. Duane Morris ranked 82nd among U.S. law firms by revenue in the 2025 Am Law 200 and carries roughly 750 attorneys across 29 offices as of 2026, according to its own reporting cited on Wikipedia.

Washington, D.C.'s gaming-law bench extends beyond those two firms. Super Lawyers' rankings also name Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Milbank, DLA Piper, Venable, King & Spalding, Ropes & Gray, and ZwillGen as firms with recognized D.C. gaming practices, reflecting how concentrated sports betting legal work has become in the capital as federal legislation, not just state licensing, enters the picture.

How do PR, lobbying, and legal functions work together inside a sportsbook?

The tax-deduction fight over sports betting losses shows all three functions operating on the same issue at once. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut the wager-loss deduction to 90 percent of losses against 100 percent of gains starting January 2026, FanDuel and DraftKings lobbied in support of two restoration bills, the FAIR BET Act from Rep. Dina Titus and the FULL HOUSE Act from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, according to OpenSecrets' March 2026 reporting.

Legal teams at firms like Ifrah Law and Duane Morris interpret how the tax and licensing rules apply state by state, government-affairs teams and the Sports Betting Alliance lobby to change the rules, and PR teams manage the public message and regulator relationship once a bill moves, the pattern 5W's Responsible Gambling Communications Audit measured directly when it scored which operators engage regulators before a crisis forces them to. A single regulatory event routes through all three functions before a sportsbook's public position is set.

How does representation break down across the sports betting industry?