Radio plays a key role with online sports bettors, with 20% listening to 13 hours or more weekly, and the weekday 6am-7pm hours reaching nine in ten (92%), while afternoon drive (3-7pm) reaches 71%.
Those are some of the findings reviewed in Nielsen Scarborough's recent deep-dive webinar on online sports bettors, profiling those in one of the three highest-indexing market of activity, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
The webinar's presenter, Nielsen Senior Manager of Client Learning Susanne Walton, also noted that more than half of sports bettors say they enjoy listening to radio in their vehicle, with another 25% agreeing that they enjoy listening at home.
Among the AM/FM radio formats that those who wager on sports are more likely to be tuned to are, no surprise, sports, along with news/talk, and alternative, while sports, AC, and classic rock are the most listened-to overall.
Philadelphia sports bettors in Scarborough's highest media quintile, including those with the heaviest consumption of media, show a greater likelihood of time spent on the internet, out-of-home, and newspaper while “maintaining steady consumption [of] radio,” Walton says.
With a 98 index, radio still has a strong story to tell. Not including station streaming, sports bettors spend 13 or more hours weekly listening to AM/FM radio. It's also worth noting that for out-of-home, those in quintile 1 traveled 200 or more miles in the past week as a driver or passenger in vehicles, upping radio's ad potential.
Looking at sports on radio specifically, close to one-third of Philadelphia's online sports bettors are tuned to Phillies and Eagles games during their seasons, with the 76ers third at close to 20%, followed by a wide range of other sports events. For sports-betting Phillies’ listeners, Mon.-Sun. 7pm-midnight is the top daypart.
Scarborough's data shows that online sports bettors in the market skew younger and more affluent than the Philly average. They're primarily men with an average age of 42 (vs. 50 for the market), with 62% having a household income north of $100,000 and averaging $133,000 (vs. $96,000 for the market). More than half (56%) are married, and close to half (45%) have at least one child at home, with 29% of them being under the age of five.
The race/ethnicity breakdown shows 81% of online sports bettors are white, with 13% Black or African American, 7% Hispanic, and 5% Asian. Among the LGBTQ+ community, 12% of online sports bettors are gay or lesbian. “When it comes to media, the message you share matters just as much as the media used, which isn't always one size fits all,” Walton says. “Overall, there's a great opportunity for tailoring messages focused on just about any of the demographic details we've identified.”
Based on Scarborough's measurement of seven specific sports betting apps or websites, the highest indexing among this group are BetMGM, Caesars, and Fox Bet, with DraftKings also over-indexing to a lesser degree. The majority of Philly sports bettors use two or more apps, and 43% report playing daily fantasy sports online on apps such as DraftKings or FanDuel.