As opportunities for watching sports have become more limited in the last year, opportunities for betting on sports have proliferated. Online gambling has been a popular activity since Americans first had internet access, but today’s Insight Flash digs deeper into specific recent trends including acceleration in the subindustry’s growth, loyalty to specific services, and how trends vary by US State.
Since the beginning of 2019, spend for Online Gambling in the US has outpaced other Leisure and Recreation subindustries by a large margin. Although there has been seasonality in the growth rate as different sports cycle through the year, an acceleration to 74% y/y spend growth in June 2020 was the beginning of ten months of growth above 50%, including growth above 100% in July and August of 2020, and a peak of 134% y/y spend growth in March 2021.
Leisure and Recreation Industry and Subindustry Spend Growth
In that same time period since the beginning of 2019, the 80eighty raffle site has seen the highest percentage of new customers among the top sites tracked, with 40-60% of individuals buying entries new each month (with the exception of November 2020 where only 30% were new shoppers). FanDuel and DraftKings both pick up the largest percentage of new shoppers with football season in September (both 2019 and 2020) and the Superbowl last February. FanDuel new shoppers were 47% of customers in September 2019 and over 35% in September 2020 and February 2021, while DraftKings saw over 30% new shoppers in all three periods. TVG has lagged the others in gaining new shoppers, with downward trends since March 2020 when 42% of customers were new.
New vs. Repeat Customers
State regulations have been a big driver of online gambling access and popularity. New Jersey residents had the biggest share of online gambling spend in the last year at 13%, despite cardholders comprising only 3% of our panel. Year-over-year, Illinois residents have seen the biggest delta in share of online gambling spend at 6% growth, followed by Michigan at 4%.
State-Level Trends
