Morgan Stanley releases bi-annual sports betting survey

The company announced takeaways and implications from consumer trends and data research.

Morgan Stanley has released its third bi-annual sports betting survey, seeing increased participation in all states and a rise in activity from female and older consumers. 

The takeaways from the survey were reported to be that awareness and participation continues to rise across states with a coincident increase in bet frequency even in the most mature states.

Young males are still the main income-drivers for sportsbooks, but female and older bettors expanded their presence to 32% since Morgan Stanley’s last survey released in 2022. 

Parlays were reported to be the most popular offering amongst young, low-income players, who also appear to favor parlays more in newly launched states rather than existing. 

Fanatics sportsbook and ESPN Bet were found to have the highest-valued promotions through its sports betting offerings, but customers continue to value the ease of application use above all other factors. 

DraftKings and FanDuel remained as the two most popular sportsbook offerings in the US, as showcased by overall market share, but BetMGM generated the largest incremental gain throughout the period. 

While BetMGM showed positive improvements in the survey, both Fanatics and ESPN Bet had the biggest challenge to overcome in Morgan Stanley’s view.

Good to know: Morgan Stanley underwent an economic deep dive of DraftKings stock following its Q2 2024 results on August 13

“Among those we surveyed this year, Fanatics and ESPN Bet app users had the highest levels of identifying bonuses/price promotions as a key reason to use an app,” Morgan Stanley said. 

“While there are a handful of reasons to use a sports betting app beyond promos, their customers’ perceived preference for promos relative to other apps could be a concern in improving overall NGR share over time.”

Morgan Stanley also stated that since parlays carry a 10% or higher win rate, expansion into older demographics or maintaining its popularity as the current consumer ages would point to significant win rate improvement in the future.

Kirk Geller

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