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Concerns about advertising saturation remain top of mind for regulators despite sports-betting operators in the United States slowing their advertising barrage in recent years in pursuit of profits over customer acquisition.
Although the volume of advertising has declined as the most prominent sports-betting operators have scaled back their spending, regulators said during a panel on the first day of the G2E convention in Las Vegas that complaints and concerns from lawmakers and regular citizens alike remain.
“I heard from an awful lot of legislators that, 'Hey, we did not realize the velocity and sort of in-your-face nature of advertising',” said Dennis Mullen, acting executive director of the Indiana Gaming Commission.
"Whenever I go to parties … or talking to neighbors, one of the things that they ask me is, can you please do something about the advertisements?” added Marcus Fruchter, administrator of the Illinois Gaming Board. “And then I have to give them a long answer that's not very satisfying or interesting.”
Fruchter said that the perception of sports-betting advertising as overdone is something that regulators, and industry stakeholders, need to pay attention to.
“Some were probably aware of it, some may not have fully comprehended the scope that it was going to develop, and some may have been completely caught off guard,” Fruchter said.
“I don't know that I have a perspective whether that's good or bad, but I think as regulators and industry and sports teams and leagues, we have to be conscious of what is the fan perception of that, and what is the public perception of the advertising, the amount of advertising, the content of it.”
“I hope [it’s going] to a better spot where you need to advertise responsibly,” Mullen added. “This has to be sort of a holistic attack in terms of problem gambling and safer gambling, and that certainly plays a role in it, but it is incumbent on regulators to step in when it gets out of line.”
Andrew Rhodes, chief executive of the UK Gambling Commission, brought a perspective from a jurisdiction that is at least a decade ahead of most U.S. jurisdictions when it comes to market maturity and a well-worn advertising debate.
“Advertising of gambling is extraordinarily unpopular amongst consumers, it's the saturation and it's how common it is on certain channels,” Rhodes told G2E attendees. “The evidence base around it is not as conclusive as people will argue it is, and that's really, really difficult, because to what extent does advertising motivate people when it's so pervasive, so common, that they don't necessarily notice it as much?”
Rhodes added that a key difference is while U.S. companies are still pursuing new customers in their marketing, UK operators are largely looking to capture market share from each other.
“In terms of our market, overall participation has been static for a number of years,” he said. “Advertising is really geared at winning share from someone else, so it's speaking to an already engaged audience to a certain degree.
“I think it's very interesting to watch in other jurisdictions where there has been such a sudden explosion of gambling advertising because it is now live where it wasn't before,” he continued. “We've lived with that longer-term journey, and I think some of those things will probably come to the fore quite quickly in these jurisdictions.”
