Here's how much money sports gamblers are betting every month - and their favorite sports to wager on

MW Here's how much money sports gamblers are betting every month - and their favorite sports to wager on

By Weston Blasi

A detailed look at sports gambling numbers, six years after it was legalized

Since the federal ban on sports betting was lifted in 2018, Americans have wagered a total of $420 billion on sports, according to a new report.

Now 38 states and Washington, D.C. offer legalized sports betting, and we have data to see how many people place wagers, how much they bet and which sports they prefer, among other details.

A majority of sports bettors - between 62% and 65% depending on the sport - place bets with a monetary value between $1 and $100 each month, according to data from YouGov, a market research and data analytics company. The top sports that bettors say they wager on each month are football, basketball, soccer, baseball and horse racing.

YouGov's Global Gambling Profiles shows that around 20% to 23% of bettors say they wager even more than that, claiming a monthly betting amount ranging between $101 and $500. High-stakes gamblers - defined as people who place monthly wagers that are $500 or more - make up 9% to 12% of all people who make bets. These amounts include traditional bets, money staked on daily fantasy sports tournaments and other contests, like fantasy sports matchups between friends.

Between 5,027 and 10,539 people were sampled for each sport, and their responses were collected between November 2023 and October 2024.

"So 90% of bettors are spending less than $500 a month, and two-thirds are spending less than $100," Ryan Butler, betting and gaming analyst at sports data site Covers, told MarketWatch.

A majority of bettors only risking $100 or less shows that many are viewing sports gambling as an activity, and not a get-rich-quick scheme, he said.

The survey also gets into which betting platforms people prefer, with DraftKings $(DKNG)$ and Flutter Entertainment's $(FLUT)$ FanDuel as the top choices.

This is consistent with previously known data on the sports betting marketshare, with those two companies hosting a majority of bets. Brands like Penn's ESPN Bet, Bet365 and BetMGM $(MGM)$ trail behind.

See: Here's how the IRS could collect over $1 billion in unreported gambling income

The YouGov survey shows that 31% of Americans who gamble are betting at least $101 a month on sports. While that may not sound like a lot - and of course, some bets are winners - it can add up as months turn into years.

And after sports betting is legalized in a state, financially constrained households that participate in betting immediately see negative impacts on their finances in several ways, according to a recent report released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit that specializes in economic research. Those adverse effects include more credit-card debt, less available credit, a rise in overdraft frequency and lower investment contributions.

Those financially constrained individuals have less disposable income available, which could impact other areas of their lives, like investing.

A reduction in net investment of $100 or more may not severely impact a person's total portfolio in the short term, but it could have a major long-term impact. Particularly for a younger investor, losing net investments could mean missing out on huge gains over time due to compound growth.

Among the states that now offer some forms of sports betting, about 7.7% of households made online sports wagers, with an average yearly bet amount of $1,100, according to NBER.

"There could be long-term financial impacts if sports betting crowds out personal savings or induces households to increase leverage to continue betting," the report said.

Read on: ??How does a gambling site lose money? DraftKings just lost $250 million in revenue - mostly on NFL games.

-Weston Blasi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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November 21, 2024 15:43 ET (20:43 GMT)

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