Madness: Sports Betting Is Booming

By beth mason March 28, 2021

Sports betting is taking off.

As more and more states face budget shortfalls, they’re turning to legalized sports gambling as a potential goldmine of new tax revenue.

Couple this legalization trend with the surge in consumer demand for watching live sports, and you’ve got a nice 1-2 punch of demand drivers for the sports betting world.

And it’s already showing up in LikeFolio data.

Consumer demand levels for placing wagers on sporting events have risen by 23% year-over-year to make new all-time highs.

If you’re like me, basketball will be on at pretty much all times this weekend.

March Madness is sweeping the nation for the first time in two years, after seeing the entire tournament cancelled in 2020.

Make no mistake about it — this is fantastic for sports-betting platforms.

On a seven-day moving average, sports-betting mentions have increased +60% since the start of March Madness vs. prior levels.

Which betting platform is winning?

FanDuel (brand owned by Flutter: PDYPF) has experienced the most robust adoption of late.

The company is exploring partial IPO for FanDuel in the U.S. to take advantage of this recent success.

Comprehensively, here’s how the parent companies stack up:

Consumer mentions of sports betting platforms has increased across the board:

All platforms tracked have experienced double-digit demand surges in the last quarter.

FanDuel: +155% YoY
Barstool Sportsbook/Bets: +84% YoY
DraftKings: +61% YoY

Keep in mind, PENN owns a minority stake (36%) in Barstool Sports and has an exclusive sports-betting and iCasino partnership.

While Barstool Sports still tails FanDuel and DraftKings, it is starting to eat into their dominant market share.

Perhaps more importantly, Barstool is creating a notably better consumer experience, as indicated by its impressive position on this scatter plot as the online sportsbook with the highest overall consumer happiness level.

Barstool may not be growing as quickly as its competitors on a year-over-year basis yet, but LikeFolio has seen time and time again where the company that creates the happiest customers wins the race in the long run.

Plenty of Room for Lots of Winners

Bottom line: Sports Betting is gaining traction alongside live sports events and continued legalization.

Currently, ~86 million Americans have access to legalized sports betting (across 20 states), and this number is expected to grow.

This is an enormous opportunity for sports-betting platforms.

We’ll continue monitoring the segment as a whole to spot over- and under-performers on a company level… making sure that LikeFolio clients are the first to know which companies are set to “cash in” on the biggest gains from this incredible trend.

Andy Swan,
Founder, LikeFolio