• by Wayne Friedman , April 7, 2023

Through the NFL, NCAA basketball season and NBA pre-playoff action, national TV marketing for online gaming/gambling -- airings and estimated spending -- continues to soar.

National TV advertising revenue is estimated to be 49% higher to $115.6 million -- coming from 31,130 commercial airings, garnering 13 billion impressions, according to EDO Ad EnGage, a measurement/analytics company

A year ago over the same time period, national TV spending was $77.6 million -- 17,840 airings a year ago and 8.4 billion impressions.

This is largely fueled by specific sports gambling businesses. The three dominant sports gambling/gaming brands continue to be FanDuel ($38.5 million), Draft Kings ($33.1 million) and BetMGM ($16.8 million).

All three continue to score strong creative metrics when it comes to search engagement -- website visits after viewers see TV commercials. With a ‘Creative SER’ index of 100 being average, FanDuel was at a 207.4 index; DraftKings, 265.8, and BetMGM, 143.3.

Similar estimates for online gambling/gaming have been reported via iSpot.tv this year -- $119.9 million in TV spend and 11 billion impressions.

The biggest event of the year was around the NFL’s Super Bowl in mid-February where over $15 million was spent in total national TV advertising.

Overall since the beginning of the year, NFL dominated most of those national TV gambling/gaming dollars, with the NFL championships/playoffs at $69.6 million. NBA basketball came in at $10 billion.

Now, sports betting is legal in 36 states -- up from 32 in 2021. Mobile sports betting is now legal in 26 states, up from 18 in January 2022.