With NFL Kicking Off, a Look at Sports Betting in USA

With the NFL season set to kick off on Thursday September 8, Similarweb data on sports betting in the USA shows DraftKings is the clear leader in an industry likely to see strong demand this month, if historical trends continue.

Key takeaways

• Draftkings.com has the most monthly visitors in 2022 (through August), averaging 14.1 million visitors per month. It also leads peers in unique visitors per month (4.4 million) in pages per visit (8.3) and in visit duration, at almost thirteen minutes per session on average (12:40).
• Fanduel.com, in second place in monthly visitors (10.9 million) year to date, and is second in visit duration (11:54). FanDuel also sports the lowest bounce rate 30.0% (bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave after only visiting a single web page). Betmgm.com has the worst bounce rate at 44.7%.
• Traffic in August 2022 is down for the three largest peers we looked at (DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM), but was up from July. We would expect to see a big spike in traffic in September, in line with historical trends, as the NFL season kicks off.

DraftKings is the clear leader in the USA, but traffic is down from last year

Taking a look at monthly visits, DraftKings is the clear leader, averaging 12.7 million visitors year to date through August, versus 10.2 mil. for FanDuel, and 4.6 mil. for BetMGM. Aggregated traffic to these three sites in the month of August 2022 was 5.6% lower than August 2021, but was up 13% from July, as traffic starts to build for the NFL season.

Historical trends show that a big spike is likely in September. In 2021, September traffic was up 27% from the prior month. September is also seasonally the strongest month of the year for these four betting sites.

DraftKings leads in most customer engagement metrics

DraftKings leads across most customer service metrics, including unique visitors, visit duration, pages per visit and is a close second in bounce rate. So its customers are strongly engaged, a good sign that it is likely to continue to see good demand and high betting activity in the coming months.

Notably, while Caesars is seeing rising website traffic, its customers are not nearly as engaged, as it lags peers in visit duration and pages per visit. This could be a sign that its site is less compelling than its peers.

Demographic data shows sports betting skews males of all ages

A look at Similarweb demographic data, shows that these four sites skew towards males to a significant degree, but across most age groups. The lack of female representations represents a clear opportunity for these sites, if they can find a way to reach out to females more.

Conclusion

The start of the NFL season typically brings out the sports bettors en masse. Heading into the start of the season this week, DraftKings is the clear leader in the USA with stronger web traffic and a highly engaged customer base.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

Disclaimer: All data, reports and other materials provided or made available by Similarweb are based on data obtained from third parties, including estimations and extrapolations based on such data. Similarweb shall not be responsible for the accuracy of the materials and shall have no liability for any decision by any third party based in whole or in part on the materials.

by Jim Corridore

Senior Analyst

Jim provides insights across multiple sectors. With 30 years on Wall Street and numerous awards for stock-picking, he is a SUNY Albany graduate.