US Operator Tracker Q4 2024: Differentiation still sought after in maturing market

FairPlay Sports Media’s US Operator Tracker has now been live for five consecutive quarters, providing a neutral overview of the various perceptions regular US bettors have of regulated sportsbooks from both a brand and feature point of view.

Previous trackers have confirmed the dominance of the ‘big two’ in DraftKings and FanDuel, with the picture remaining similar for Q4 2024, although the former has begun to establish a notable lead of 8% in terms of ‘favoritism’ over its main rival.

That is a gap which has increased by 3% on Q3 2024, with BetMGM ranked third, 14 percentage points behind.

While DraftKings has succeeded at converting strong awareness to being a favorite sportsbook of 35% of those surveyed, this latest data set suggests stronger growth among challenger brands for ‘awareness’ in the last quarter.

BetRivers saw an uptick of 8% on the metric, while Fanatics and Hard Rock both jumped 7%, with Bally Bet in the same ballpark, up 7%.

These figures suggest challenger brands are making inroads in brand awareness but are yet to steal notable share from the market leaders, with ‘regular usage’ figures remaining relatively flat across the board, except for FanDuel, which fell 7% in the quarter.

Analyzing qualified brand perceptions, little separates the dominant and challenger brands across most metrics when factoring in awareness of each sportsbook. However, on deeper inspection of their relative strengths considering the weightings of each brand, DraftKings sees a notable spike in ‘rewards customers’ (+5%), while under indexing for ‘fair,’ ‘fun,’ and ‘unique,’ with its main competitor FanDuel over indexing for the latter two perceptions.

Challenger brands tend to index as expected across the board, with none more than 2% clear of the expectation on ‘unique,’ an indicator that either these brands are yet to establish any individual credentials or are choosing to stay in the center ground.

With similar homogeneity on features and product strengths too, it’s most notable looking at relative strengths, with DraftKings underperforming by 4% on its provision of ‘stats/insight,’ with stronger perceptions around ease-of-use metrics.

FanDuel drops below expectations on its betting variety by bet type and sports. ESPN Bet is arguably the main challenger to stand out on features, over indexing on its variety and, most notably ‘stats/insight’ (+5%), which may be heavily linked to ESPN’s broadcasting heritage and integration into its betting app.

While the US market continues to be dominated by DraftKings and FanDuel and continues a trend of product maturity, it remains the case that the market has yet to differentiate, with brands offering little in terms of unique brand strengths.

With this pattern continuing for more than a year of Operator Tracker data, there remains to be a surge from any challenger brands looking to separate themselves from the pack, or to specifically target certain audiences, via either brand or feature perceptions.

About FairPlay Sports Media

EGR and FairPlay Sports Media have partnered to bring a data-led, quarterly report on brand perception of leading firms in the sector.

These insights are produced by FairPlay Sports Media senior customer insights manager Peter Morris. He has more than a decade of experience working in market research, starting his career working at agencies Ipsos Mori and then 2CV, with a particular focus on brand and marketing research projects.

In 2018 Morris joined what was then Oddschecker, focusing on UK product and marketing insight. Since then, he has expanded his role, heading up customer insight within FairPlay Sports Media, providing intel across all their operations and territories.