Originally published April 2026. Updated October 10, 2026.
Sports betting public relations is the work of protecting an operator's state licenses, building trust with bettors, running credible responsible gambling programs, and managing leagues, athletes, creators and regulators. In 2025, U.S. sportsbooks earned about $16.9 billion in a market that now spans 39 states plus Washington, D.C., according to American Gaming Association data reported by industry press.
Sports betting PR covers seven jobs: state licensing and regulatory communications, brand building, responsible gambling, league and athlete partnerships, integrity and crisis response, creator and influencer compliance, and visibility inside AI engines. Each job answers to a different audience, and the same announcement often has to work for regulators, bettors and investors at once.
The category differs from casino PR in one structural way. A sportsbook has no property. The brand lives in an app, in broadcast advertising and in partnerships with leagues and media, so reputation forms in store reviews, social feeds and sports coverage rather than at a front desk. Everything-PR covers casinos separately in Casino Public Relations, and the broader category in the gambling public relations pillar and lottery public relations. Operators that run both, such as BetMGM and Caesars, appear in each.
U.S. commercial sports betting revenue reached about $16.9 billion in 2025, up 22.6 percent from 2024, according to American Gaming Association figures reported by InterGame. That total excludes Florida and sportsbooks inside tribal casinos. Industry trackers put legal sports betting at 39 states plus Washington, D.C. by mid-2026, with about 30 states allowing online wagering, after Missouri launched online betting in December 2025.
| Measure | Figure | Source and year |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. commercial sports betting revenue | About $16.9 billion, up 22.6 percent | American Gaming Association, 2025, via InterGame |
| States with legal sports betting | 39 plus Washington, D.C.; about 30 with online wagering | Industry trackers, mid-2026 |
| Q1 2026 revenue | About $3.8 billion on more than $40 billion in handle | State regulator data, reported 2026 |
| Combined DraftKings and FanDuel share of handle | About 68 percent | Casino Reports, March 2026 |
| Operator marketing spend | $3.9 billion | 5W Gaming Trust Index, 2025 data |
Two facts shape communications. First, growth continues but is slowing, so operators compete for share rather than for new markets. Second, concentration is high: trackers estimate that FanDuel holds 37 to 44 percent of online gross gaming revenue and DraftKings 34 to 36 percent, so every other operator needs a reason for bettors to switch. The legal footing for the whole market dates to the Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Murphy v. NCAA, which struck down the federal ban on state-authorized sports betting. The marketing side of the category is analyzed in the Gaming Trust Index.
Sports betting is harder to communicate than most categories because it combines a mass audience, a regulated product and constant live news. The audience is every sports fan, so advertising reaches people at all ages and the youth question follows every campaign. The product is licensed state by state, so a single national message can break a rule in one market. And the news cycle runs with the sports calendar, so an integrity story, a regulatory ruling or an app outage can arrive in the middle of a major game.
Three habits separate the strongest teams. They write messages for regulators first and consumers second, because a license can be lost and a campaign cannot. They keep a standing relationship with sports journalists and trade press such as Legal Sports Report, SBC Americas and EGR North America, so a company statement reaches the people who will interpret it. And they treat product reliability as communications: geolocation failures, slow withdrawals and login problems become public in app store reviews and social posts within hours.
These habits also reduce dependence on paid media. Where an operator has built trust with regulators, reporters and its own users, a restriction on advertising or a bad week of news is easier to absorb.
The major operators are FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook and Fanatics Sportsbook, plus prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket that now sell sports contracts. Each uses a different brand strategy, and every newer operator competes against one of these templates.
| Operator | Parent or structure | Brand approach | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|
| FanDuel | Flutter Entertainment | Fantasy sports heritage, responsible gambling programs such as Play Well, creator partnerships | FanDuel's youth-protection playbook |
| DraftKings | DraftKings Inc. | Performance marketing at scale, league partnerships, a broad state footprint | DraftKings and the performance branding paradox |
| BetMGM | MGM Resorts and Entain joint venture | Casino loyalty integration, responsible gambling as a brand pillar, celebrity creative | The six-move BetMGM PR playbook |
| Caesars Sportsbook | Caesars Entertainment | Las Vegas casino brand extended into digital, family and celebrity campaigns | Gambling PR Campaign Reference |
| Fanatics Sportsbook | Fanatics | Merchandise and fan platform extended into betting | Fanatics Sportsbook profile |
| Kalshi and Polymarket | Prediction markets | Event contracts under a federal framework, now contested by states | Kalshi and Polymarket |
The strategic differences are documented in the Gambling PR Campaign Reference. The Israeli technology behind part of the duopoly is profiled in Shalom Meckenzie: The Israeli Builder Inside DraftKings.
FanDuel, owned by Flutter Entertainment, leads on revenue share and built its sportsbook on a fantasy sports audience that already trusted the name. Its responsible gambling work, including the Play Well program and its youth-protection response, is the most documented in the category, and its creator partnerships carry the brand into sports media. Trackers show FanDuel trailing DraftKings on handle but leading on gross gaming revenue, which reflects a higher parlay mix and hold.
DraftKings built its position on volume and on a wide state footprint, and it acquired Golden Nugget Online Gaming in a $1.56 billion deal that extended its reach into online casino, covered in DraftKings Acquires Golden Nugget. Its marketing doctrine is performance branding: heavy advertising tied directly to sign-ups, and league and media partnerships that keep the name in front of sports fans.
BetMGM combines the MGM Resorts loyalty system with Entain's sportsbook technology, so its communications can reach casino guests and bettors from one member base. It treats responsible gambling as a brand pillar and puts executives on the record, which are two of the six moves in its documented playbook. Caesars Sportsbook extends a Las Vegas casino brand into digital with family-led and celebrity campaigns. Fanatics Sportsbook starts from a merchandise and fan relationship and adds betting to an existing audience.
The practical point for newer operators is that each leader owns a distinct asset: heritage, scale, a loyalty base, a casino name or a fan platform. An operator without one of those assets needs to build its own, because matching a leader's odds does not create a reason to switch.
The acquisition era taught operators that a database of sign-ups is not a brand. After 2018, FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars and a long list of challengers spent heavily on sign-up bonuses, celebrity endorsements and promotions in each newly legal state, and customers who claimed one offer often moved to the next operator's promotion.
The operators with durable positions built something promotions could not buy. FanDuel's years in fantasy sports gave its sportsbook a head start in consumer trust. DraftKings built deep embeddedness with sports media and then faced the cost of the performance marketing model it had popularized, a trade-off analyzed in the performance branding paradox. The operators with no brand story now compete on odds and features alone.
Regulation raises the stakes. Several states have passed or considered limits on gambling advertising near schools, during broadcasts and to self-excluded customers, and the United Kingdom's earlier restrictions show where the debate can lead. An operator that depends on paid acquisition is the most exposed when those channels narrow, because earned media, owned content and community take years to build. The platform-by-platform limits are listed in Gambling Advertising Rules by Platform.
Building owned assets is the practical answer. That means relationships with the journalists who cover betting, editorial content on sports analysis that earns trust, community presence in the fan groups that drive volume, and a brand narrative beyond the offer. The funnel mechanics are explained in The Sportsbook Funnel Is Breaking, and the CMO mandate shift is covered in The Gambling CMO Playbook.
State taxes and advertising rules shape messaging because they decide how much an operator can spend on promotions and where it can spend it. New York, New Hampshire and Rhode Island tax online sports betting at 51 percent of gross gaming revenue, and Tennessee taxes handle at 1.85 percent instead of revenue, according to a Track360 summary of state statutes. High rates leave less room for bonuses, so operators in those states lean on brand, product and retention.
Advertising rules vary by platform as well as by state. Gambling Advertising Rules by Platform reports that Google, Meta, TikTok, X and Snap allow gambling ads only for licensed, approved operators, and that Pinterest bars them. A communications team should map each state's rules and each platform's rules together, then decide which messages need earned media and owned channels instead of paid placement. For regional operators that cannot match national budgets, that earned-and-owned approach is often the stronger long-term play.
Sportsbooks handle responsible gambling credibly when they run programs all year, partner with independent organizations, and publish what they spend. Seasonal campaigns that appear during regulatory scrutiny are easy for analysts and advocates to spot.
Three kinds of evidence now track the category. The 5W Responsible Gambling Index 2026 scored ten U.S.-licensed operators on a 100-point scale, with MGM at 81 and Stake.us at 22. The spend-ratio analysis found an 8.7-to-1 ratio of advertising to responsible gambling communications across 30 operators. And ESG analysts are beginning to track responsible gambling spend as a share of marketing budget, as covered in the ESG analyst audit.
Youth exposure is the sharpest risk. FanDuel's response, built around its Play Well program, trusted voices and ambassadors, is the reference case in Youth Sports Betting PR. The same principles apply to every operator: set limits inside the product, publish results, and invite independent review.
Leagues, athletes and creators fit in as the distribution layer of sportsbook marketing, and each carries rules and risks. The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL each have official sportsbook partnerships that include data licensing and integrity commitments, and athlete campaigns have featured figures such as Kevin Hart, Jamie Foxx, LeBron James, Drake and Rob Gronkowski.
The communications question is how to turn a partnership into lasting brand equity without triggering youth-exposure or integrity criticism. Integrity units at leagues investigate prop-bet manipulation, and in-broadcast advertising rules have tightened under pressure from state regulators and the American Gaming Association.
Creator marketing has the tightest compliance limits: clear disclosure, age-gating, geofencing to legal states and responsible gambling messaging in each post. The rules from the Federal Trade Commission, states and platforms are summarized in Casino and Sportsbook Influencer Marketing: Rules and Risk. Related analysis covers a Wall Street Journal investigation into creator-driven prediction market marketing and the UK group-channel model in The Sidemen Model. Agencies advising operators should also read Before You Hire an Online Gambling PR Agency.
Prediction markets are changing the category because they sell sports contracts under federal commodities oversight while states treat the same products as gambling. As of October 2026, three federal appeals courts have reached different results, and the question is headed toward the U.S. Supreme Court.
| Court | State | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Third Circuit | New Jersey | April 6, 2026 | Ruled 2 to 1 for Kalshi on federal preemption |
| Ninth Circuit | Nevada | August 28, 2026 | Ruled against Kalshi, finding the contracts are sports gambling subject to state law |
| Sixth Circuit | Ohio and Tennessee | September 25, 2026 | Ruled unanimously that states may apply gambling laws to Kalshi's sports contracts |
The Sixth Circuit opinion held that Kalshi had not shown its sports contracts are swaps within the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's exclusive jurisdiction, and that the Commodity Exchange Act does not preempt the two states' gambling laws, according to CNBC's report of the ruling. CNBC also reported that the CFTC has sued nine states to defend its claim of exclusive authority. Litigation trackers show a petition for Supreme Court review pending in the New Jersey case, with Kalshi's response due November 9, 2026, and the NFL filed a brief on October 8 supporting the states.
For sportsbook operators this creates three decisions. Operators can compete by launching their own event-contract products, and industry reporting says some established operators have. They can lobby for the state framework, which treats the products as licensed gambling. Or they can stay on the sidelines and defend their share through brand and responsible gambling. Whichever path they choose, they must explain it to two sets of regulators who currently disagree about the rules. Everything-PR's earlier forecasts in the 50 sports betting predictions treated the federal outcome as likely, and the 2026 rulings show the question remains open. The research on how AI engines already direct residents of unlegalized states toward prediction markets is in Pre-Legalization AI Visibility Hits Sports Betting.
Operators run crises on speed and discipline, and state launches in four phases. Both rely on plans built before the event.
Coordinate with the league, team and regulators within 24 hours. Issue a holding statement that confirms cooperation without speculating on facts. Brief employees at the same time as the public, and avoid shifting blame in the first 48 hours. The founding example of crisis-driven category building is the 2015 fight with the New York attorney general, described below.
| Phase | Focus |
|---|---|
| Pre-licensing | Regulator engagement, tribal and stakeholder outreach, responsible gambling partnerships, supplier relationships |
| Pre-launch | Brand awareness within state advertising rules, retail partner activation, hiring announcements, sports-property partnerships |
| Launch | Coordinated press across consumer, trade and regional outlets, creator activation, local press relationships |
| Post-launch | Ongoing visibility, seasonal communications, loyalty integration, competitive response |
Each state is a separate regulatory relationship, so the operators with former state regulators and experienced government affairs staff start with an advantage. The wider playbook for categories where ads are restricted is in Regulated Industries PR.
AI visibility shapes sportsbook discovery because bettors now ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews which sportsbook to use, and the engines answer with named operators. The operators named first enter the consideration set.
The 5W Sports Betting and Gaming AI Visibility Index 2026 ranked 25 operators by citation share across four engines, with FanDuel first, DraftKings second, BetMGM third, Caesars fourth and ESPN Bet fifth. The index found that two operators own most of the market and a small group follows them. A companion study, the NFL owners reputation index, extends the research to ownership groups.
Three mechanisms explain the results. Community sentiment on Reddit feeds the engines' sense of which brands people trust, a pattern described in Reddit for Gambling. Engines respond differently to gambling queries than to other categories, with more hedging and legality framing, a pattern shown in The Bots Don't Like Gambling. And engines do not check state licensing before naming a sportsbook, which creates the liability analyzed in Gambling's State-by-State Map Is Now an AI Liability. For regional sportsbooks, that gap is also an opening. The overall framework is in Gambling PR and AI Visibility.
Operators should watch four developments over the coming months. Each one can change how the category is regulated, advertised or discovered.
The 2026 appellate rulings also mean that any plan that assumed a clear federal win for prediction markets needs revision. Operators should keep legal, government affairs and communications aligned on one message about how they will compete in a market where the rules differ by court district.
A sports betting communications plan should assign each audience a message, an owner and a measure, then revisit the plan after each regulatory or market change.
| Audience | What they need | How to measure it |
|---|---|---|
| State regulators | Compliance evidence, clean advertising, prompt disclosure | Clean audits, no unresolved enforcement actions |
| Bettors | Clear offers, safe-play tools, reliable app performance | Store ratings, retention, complaint volume |
| Leagues and teams | Integrity cooperation and brand-safe partnerships | Renewal of partnerships, integrity case outcomes |
| Investors and ESG analysts | Responsible gambling data and governance disclosure | Analyst coverage and ESG ratings |
| Creators and affiliates | Disclosure rules and age-gating | Compliance audits, platform standing |
| AI engines and search | Licensing pages, original research, named experts | Citation share across the major engines |
Start with the regulator, then the product, then the brand. Publish responsible gambling results on a schedule, keep an incident plan ready for integrity events, and decide in advance how the company will speak about prediction markets. Operators looking for a related category roadmap can read Casino Public Relations.
Modern sports betting PR began in November 2015, when New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman declared DraftKings and FanDuel illegal gambling. The companies coordinated a crisis response with Sard Verbinnen: they refused to retreat, reframed the category as skill-based and worked to change the law around the courts. That campaign is the founding case study, told in The 2015 Schneiderman Fight That Built Modern Sports Betting PR.
The 2018 Murphy v. NCAA decision opened the market to state legalization. Earlier, in 2020, when U.S. sports betting was legal in 20 states plus Washington, D.C., operators such as Betcris were already competing for mainstream attention, a moment preserved in Betcris 2020. Compared with that period, the 2026 market has 39 states plus Washington, D.C., far larger operators and a federal-versus-state fight over who regulates sports contracts.
Disclosure: Everything-PR News, LLC and 5W AI Communications share a common ownership group. Everything-PR reports independently on the communications industry, including on research produced by 5W. Editorial decisions are made by Everything-PR's editorial team.
Sports betting PR is the discipline of building operator trust, defending state licenses, running credible responsible gambling programs, managing league, athlete and creator partnerships, and earning visibility in AI engines. It combines regulated-industry crisis planning with brand building.
Industry trackers count 39 states plus Washington, D.C. as of mid-2026, with about 30 states allowing online wagering. Missouri launched online betting in December 2025. California and Texas remain the largest states without legal sports betting.
FanDuel and DraftKings are the largest. Trackers put their combined share of handle near 68 percent in March 2026 and their share of gross gaming revenue higher, with FanDuel at roughly 37 to 44 percent. BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, Fanatics Sportsbook and regional operators follow.
It depends on the state and the court. The Third Circuit ruled for Kalshi in New Jersey in April 2026, while the Ninth Circuit ruled against Kalshi in Nevada in August and the Sixth Circuit ruled against it in Ohio and Tennessee in September. A Supreme Court petition is pending.
Run year-round programs, partner with independent organizations such as state councils and academic researchers, and publish the budget and results. The BetMGM playbook documents the approach in operator terms.
AI engines answer sportsbook questions with named operators and legality framing. Operators with strong community sentiment, structured licensing content and original research are named more often, and the named operators capture the consideration set.
Sign-up promotions produced customers who left when the offer ended, and advertising limits are spreading across states. Operators are shifting toward retention, product quality and earned brand equity. Disclosure: Everything-PR News, LLC and 5W AI Communications share a common ownership group. Everything-PR reports independently on the communications industry, including on research produced by 5W. Editorial decisions are made by Everything-PR's editorial team.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team is the staff byline for news, analysis and features on communications, reputation, AI visibility and digital discovery. Everything-PR has published since 2009. AI tools assist with research and drafting, and every article is reviewed by a human editor before publication. Coverage follows the Editorial Policy, and substantive corrections are noted on the article under the Corrections Policy.
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