US betting operators excluding FanDuel and DraftKings performed significantly better during the 2024 Super Bowl than in 2023, according to data from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (EKG).

Market leaders’ download share drops

Using data on the number of app downloads attributable to each operator during Super Bowl week, EKG showed how each of the top eight brands in the market fared this year compared to last year.

FanDuel and DraftKings’ combined share of the total number of app downloads, for example, fell from some 75% in 2023 to around 52% in 2024.

That drop came in spite of the market-leading brands boasting the most generous new user promo offers during the Super Bowl, allowing new customers to bet $5 and receive $200 in bonus funds.

Best of the rest fight back

The loss of download share for DraftKings and FanDuel indicated an increasingly competitive landscape this year, according to EKG.

For example, BetMGM “showed signs of bouncing back amid its renewed focus on marketing” this year, “having ceded quite a bit of topline share to rivals in the last year.”

The MGM Resorts and Entain joint venture saw a healthy year-on-year increase in its 100,000+ app downloads during Super Bowl week this year, while DraftKings’ and FanDuel’s download figures dropped precipitously.

ESPN Bet also (“unsurprisingly”, according to EKG) significantly outperformed its predecessor brand Barstool Sportsbook, as the new brand captured some 10% of sports betting app downloads this year, compared to Barstool’s 3% last year.

That increase came alongside more generous new user promos, EKG pointed out, with new customers eligible to receive $150 in bonus funds for making a bet of any size.

Bet365 also saw an increase in its share of app downloads, “driven by heavier marketing and new market expansion.”

Similarly, Fanatics’ acquisition of PointsBet’s US assets appeared to help the brand significantly, as together the brands captured around 4% of app downloads, well ahead of PointsBet’s performance last year, pre-acquisition.

Hard Rock and Caesars stand out

Elsewhere, perhaps the largest standout performer overall was Hard Rock Bet, whose online sports betting monopoly in Florida appears to have been nothing short of transformational for the brand.

Its exclusive access to the market, home to almost 22 million residents, allowed the firm to capture a significant share of app downloads nationally, placing it fourth among the most downloaded online sports betting apps during Super Bowl week.

Meanwhile, besides market leaders DraftKings and FanDuel, Caesars was the only brand listed to have registered fewer app downloads during this year’s Super Bowl week than last year’s.

EKG said that was the result of the company’s continued cost discipline, as reduced marketing spend saw its share of app downloads fall from around 4% to around 3%.

Key Super Bowl stats

During Super Bowl Week 2024, there were around 898,000 total online sports betting app downloads across the entire market. 

That represented a year-on-year decline of around 7%, according to EKG.

The drop came as this year’s Super Bowl “benefited less from major new market openings than last year’s game,” it noted.

The drop was not accompanied by a reduction in betting volume, however.

According to data from GeoComply, in the minutes before this year’s kick-off, nearly 15,000 sports betting transactions took place per second, almost doubling last year’s peak figure.

That didn’t mean it was all sunshine and rainbows for operators, though.

EKG’s initial feedback on actual revenue from the game was “mixed”, it said.

For example, operators more weighted towards same-game parlays (that is to say, FanDuel and DraftKings) reported positive results “thanks to the number of star players going under their props and relative lack of touchdown scorers”.

“Meanwhile, books that were more weighted to the winner of the game (most other operators) were less positive, with the Chiefs very popular with the betting public as two-point underdog,” EKG said.

One operator source told the company that it was a “bad outcome” overall for bookmakers, as “Chiefs winning pretty much any way was going to be a bad result for us.”

Image credit: Kansas City Chiefs official website