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
Perth, Australia, 25th March: 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.
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.
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.”
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.
About TrafficGuard
TrafficGuard, a flagship product of Adveritas Ltd (ASX:AV1), is a pioneering force in advertising technology, delivering AI-driven solutions that revolutionise digital ad fraud prevention and performance optimisation. Leveraging advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data, TrafficGuard empowers businesses to combat invalid traffic and ad fraud, protect advertising budgets, and enhance campaign efficiency, driving measurable return on investment (ROI). Positioned at the forefront of the rapidly growing ad tech market, TrafficGuard’s cutting-edge software has been recognised by prestigious industry awards, including The Drum, Martech Breakthrough Awards, and Mobile Marketing. Dedicated to setting new standards in transparency and security, TrafficGuard is shaping the future of intelligent, data-driven digital advertising.
Report Methodology:
TrafficGuard’s market analysis of the global sports betting landscape is underpinned by a comprehensive and meticulously structured research methodology, initiated with data derived from the campaigns of over 100 sports betting operators to establish a robust basis for evaluating real-world trends and presenting a holistic view of the industry. This foundation was augmented by TrafficGuard’s use of SEMrush, a leading digital analytics tool, to quantify unique and repeat visitors to operator websites, yielding valuable insights into audience engagement and market priorities, and to estimate advertising expenditure, clarifying operators’ financial commitments to customer acquisition through Google Search as a primary channel. Organisational scale was assessed by TrafficGuard through employee count data obtained from LinkedIn, offering a reliable metric for operational capacity. The company mapped geographical market presence using thorough online research, supplemented by an exhaustive review of regulatory resources to verify operator licences and their legal jurisdictions. Furthermore, TrafficGuard employed Mobile Action, an advanced mobile intelligence platform, to examine app usage, providing essential insights into operators’ mobile engagement strategies. By anchoring its approach in extensive campaign data from over 100 operators and integrating sophisticated digital analytics, professional networking data, regulatory verification, and mobile intelligence, TrafficGuard’s multifaceted methodology ensures its market mapping is precise, authoritative, and reflective of the dynamic trends shaping the sports betting sector.
