Use of Sports Betting Websites and Apps Jumps 60% with NFL Season Start

Online sports betting attracted about 60% more users on Sunday, compared with the season kickoff in 2022

As online sports betting becomes more widely available in the US – and advertised nonstop in sports programming – usage of betting apps and websites is growing rapidly, particularly with Sunday’s kickoff of the NFL. Betting app and website use was up about 60% compared with the season opener in 2022.

Key takeaways

• User counts were up close to 60% year-over-year for both websites and apps on Sunday, compared with last year’s NFL kickoff day on September 11, 2022. Daily active users on Android were up 56% and website unique visitors were up 59% for the list of sports betting apps we examined.
• In aggregate, sports betting apps engaged more than 925,000 active users on Android alone on Sunday as the NFL season kicked off on Sunday. Sports betting websites attracted a total of 1.8 million unique visitors that same day.
• For comparison, in September 2022, daily users averaged about 362,800 on Android, peaking on the NFL opening day of September 11, 2022, with about 593,000 users. Unique website users hit about 1.2 million.
• DraftKings Sportsbook & Casino and FanDuel Sportsbook & Casino are the two most popular apps. In August, DraftKings had 3.9 million monthly active users for its sportsbook on iOS and Android combined, compared with 1.4 million for FanDuel.
• On the web, the rankings are significantly different with international player bet365.com way out ahead with 2.7 million monthly unique visitors in August, compared with 1.4 million for draftkings.com and 671,000 for fanduel.com. Bet365 also leads by total website visits, more than 10 million, although by that measure DraftKings is closer with 5.9 million visits.

A study by Variety found that NFL football drives the most sports betting activity – about 81% in October 2022, compared with 54% for NBA basketball, and 44% for MLB baseball – although the numbers vary throughout the year depending on which sports are in season or in the middle of championship playoffs. We can see the ups and downs in the web and app data, but the overall trend is very much upward.

How app usage increased as the NFL kickoff approached

DraftKings and FanDuel led the way, followed by others including the recently launched Fanatics Sportsbook app.

Charting the rise of sports betting

Here is the overall pattern we see in the rise of sports betting apps…

…and websites.

In both cases, usage tends to peak around major sporting events such as the Super Bowl and the college March Madness season, followed by the Final Four in April.

Ranking the apps

Here is how the apps stack up, based on iOS and Android monthly active users, combined for August 2023.

Ranking the websites

Here is how the sports betting websites stack up, ranked by unique visitors…

…and by total visits, a measure of active engagement.

Much of the traffic to these sites comes directly to the domain, representing established customers, although search also plays an important role. Bet365 gets 30% of its traffic from organic search, followed by BetMGM (28%) and DraftKings (20%).

Total search traffic mostly mirrors the overall ranking of the websites.

BetRivers depends the most on paid search traffic, which accounts for 36% of the total traffic it gets from search, followed by DraftKings with 13.8% paid search traffic.

Fast-growing and fast-changing

The online betting market is growing fast but also changing fast – and due for another major shakeup with sports media powerhouse ESPN recently announcing it will introduce its own sportsbook app.

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Methodology

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Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay

by David F. Carr

David covers social media, digital advertising, and generative AI. With a background in web trends since the 1990s, he’s also the author of "Social Collaboration for Dummies".