By 
The Global Landscape of Sports Betting Operators: Key Market Trends reveals how bots and returning users are driving down marketing ROI while revenue opportunities grow.
TrafficGuard, a leading digital ad verification and fraud prevention platform, has released a new report showing that up to 44% of traffic in paid acquisition campaigns for sports betting operators is invalid or fraudulent. The report ‘The Global Landscape of Sports Betting Operators: Key Market Trends’ exposes how bots, fake clicks, and returning users are draining ad budgets and undermining efforts to attract new bettors, even as the global market promises massive growth.
RELATED: How Nigeria’s new tax rules could reshape sports betting
Drawing from TrafficGuard’s data, derived from audits of Google Search campaigns conducted for over 100 operators, the research revealed concerning trends across all operator tiers.
Tier 1 operators, the industry’s leading titans, encounter an average of 44% invalid traffic (IVT) rate, resulting in 40% of their advertising expenditure being lost to fraud. Tier 2 operators, regional heavyweights with leaner operations, experience a 29% IVT rate, with 17% of their ad budgets dissipated by invalid traffic.
Tier 3 contenders, mid-sized players in the market, face a 42% IVT rate, sacrificing 37% of their advertising funds to these inefficiencies. Tier 4 operators, the smaller underdogs, contend with a 33% IVT rate, losing 19% of their ad spend to similar issues.
Navigational traffic is infiltrating paid campaign
The research determined that 76.8% of total website traffic for sports betting operators originates from returning users. This high proportion indicates that navigational traffic is infiltrating paid campaigns, diverting resources intended for new user acquisition and potentially hindering market growth.
Returning customers drive up media spend without driving fresh acquisition by using paid ad campaigns to log in to their accounts. This problem is further compounded by bots draining ad budgets by inflating click volumes. Filtering out this traffic is critical to ensuring paid campaigns work to bring in new bettors, not just recycle existing navigational traffic.
“The sports betting industry thrives on new user acquisition, but the success of their campaigns relies on justifiable costs,” said Mathew Ratty, CEO of TrafficGuard. “We’ve mapped out the market to inform operators on the opportunity in the industry and the threats preventing further growth. Bots and hyper engaged returning users are eating up ad spend meant for incremental real bettors. The market is ripe for significant expansion, but only if invalid traffic is tackled.”
Gaps in mobile adoption have led to a missed opportunity
Mobile adoption was investigated in the report, with 84% of studied operators deploying a mobile app, however just over 20% of smaller operators have yet to adopt the strategy. Gaps in mobile adoption have led to a missed opportunity, as the average bettor places 75% of wagers via mobile devices. This means operators without a seamless mobile experience will struggle to compete. Invalid traffic detection in fantasy sports ads also remains a challenge for smaller operators.
“The global sports betting market will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the next decade and operators need to be ready to take their portion of that pie. Understanding the market landscape is essential while identifying opportunities to efficiently attract new users.
“Today, we’re seeing bots and returning users reducing the effectiveness of campaigns while inflating traffic volumes. All of these things hurt an operator’s chances of winning big over the next five to 10 years,” said Ratty.
TrafficGuard deployed a multifaceted approach for the report, combining digital analytics, professional networking data, regulatory verification, and mobile intelligence. This approach also incorporated data from campaigns of operators who use or have trialled TrafficGuard, ensuring the market mapping is precise, authoritative, and reflective of the dynamic trends shaping the sports betting sector.
Read the full report here to learn more.
