Here's a question for The Chuck GPT, the AI that bickers with Charles Barkley in a FanDuel ad that hoops fans have seen countless times this season: Are there more beer or betting commercials during NBA broadcasts?
The answer is beer or, more broadly, adult beverages. However, it's close and varies by sport, according to research from Nielsen Ad Intel, commissioned and released this week by the American Gaming Association.
Alcohol and gambling have been popular with sports fans forever, but until recently, only one of those American vices was allowed to advertise during games. From the "Tastes Great! Less Filling!" Miller Lite debate to the Bud Bowl, beer and football have been linked in commercials for decades. Ads for liquor began seeping into the NFL broadcasts in the 2010s.
Sports betting ads, however, didn't start airing during games until just five years ago. But, with 38 states (plus the District of Columbia) now having launched legal sports betting markets, gambling has quickly caught up with alcohol in terms of advertising.
According to the Nielsen research, there were more ads for alcohol than for sports betting during NBA, WNBA and MLB programming in 2024. Betting ads were more frequent than alcohol during NFL, NHL, PGA, NASCAR and MLS programming. NHL games had the highest percentage of gambling-related ads of the major sports leagues at 4.2%.
Sportsbooks accounted for 0.8% of the total national spend on television commercials in 2024, while advertising for alcohol represented 1.4%. Gambling and alcohol combined for less than 5% of the total advertising during sports content. (Editor's note: ESPN BET, one of the advertisers in the survey, is the official betting partner of ESPN).
Overall, the number of TV ads for traditional sportsbooks, not including fantasy sports operators, dropped 17% year over year in 2024 and are down 44% since their peak in 2021. However, sportsbooks' spending on advertising has remained relatively flat, at approximately $666 million in 2024, with rising costs for commercials playing a role in the decrease in betting ads.
ISpot.tv, a company that measures brand and business impact of TV and streaming advertising, found 499 airings for sports betting brands during the NFL regular season -- a 3.3% year-over-year decrease.
Because sports betting brands are far less established than those in other industries, changes in their advertising and spending strategies are to be expected. As Tyler Bobin, senior brand analyst for iSpot, told ESPN, "With time and experience, brands and industries become more mature as TV advertisers, and that will happen for sports betting, too, especially as state-by-state legality continues to evolve."
Nielsen also compared the frequency of betting commercials to those of pharmaceuticals and telecommunications. Last year, there were 38 pharmaceutical commercials on TV for every one sportsbook ad and four times as many ads for wireless/telecommunications companies as sportsbook commercials.
When including fantasy sports and other forms of gambling across all media channels (TV, print, digital, out-of-home and cinema), the study found that gambling advertising volume decreased by 1%, while spending increased by 15% to approximately $2 billion. Traditional sports betting accounted for 61% of the overall spend.
The reduced volume of commercials comes as sportsbooks face criticism from federal and state politicians and increased competition from fantasy sports, sweepstakes and prediction markets companies that mimic betting but operate outside of state gaming regulations. The Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet (SAFE Bet) Act was reintroduced in March, ahead of the NCAA tournament. The federal bill would prohibit sportsbook marketing during live sporting events, among other initiatives.
In a Congressional hearing in December, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of the sponsors of the SAFE Bet Act, said uniform guidelines are needed to address what he described as a "sports betting boom that is one of the most severe public health problems today."
"The SAFE Bet Act would, in effect, also provide more public health benefits to try to provide some relief to people who are now addicted, and those minimum standards would be set by the Department of Justice," Blumenthal said. "States would still have responsibility, but they would have to meet those minimum standards that would eliminate the kinds of promotions, ads, pitches and deceptive techniques that right now are so rampant."
The American Gaming Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents the casino industry, says the sportsbook industry, in partnership with professional sports leagues and broadcasters, is advertising responsibly and that the findings from the Nielsen research disprove allegations that game broadcasts are inundated with betting commercials.
"A low single-digit percentage of ads during pro sports broadcasts from regulated operators sets the record straight against lazy narratives and further shows how critical these ads are to platform legal sports wagering and continue to shrink the size of predatory illegal operators," Joe Maloney, senior vice president of strategic communications for the American Gaming Association, told ESPN in a statement.
Still, just six years ago, there were no betting ads on TV. Now, celebrities such as Kevin Hart and Tom Brady are pitching parlays on their endorsed sportsbook multiple times per game. Whether it's the frequency or the content of the ads, the sudden shift has rankled some and prompted calls for advertising restrictions on the industry.
More mature betting markets have already taken those steps. The United Kingdom, for example, has a "whistle-to-whistle" ban on airing betting ads during games. Is the U.S. next? Not even The Chuck GPT has a clue.