Will Super Bowl LVIII be overrun with commercials for sportsbooks and casinos? NFL officials are promising that not only will the biggest of big games not be inundated with gambling ads, but that there will only be three of them during the entire broadcast.
That’s not a sign that gambling operators are shy about spending money on advertising (a 30-second ad during the game costs $7 million) but they are concerned about wearing out their welcome by blanketing the airwaves with deposit bonus offers.
David Highhill, the NFL’s general manager for sports betting addressed the challenges of balancing advertising during a recent press conference reported on by 3NewsLV saying,“We’ve put some policies in place to limit the amount of advertising for sports betting that happens in our live games.It’s roughly one ad per quarter. All told, less than 5% of all in-game ads are sports betting ads.”
League officials, who are currently strong proponents of regulated sports betting after decades of opposition, are mindful of what has happened to operators who over-advertised in other countries. In Australia and England, a proliferation of operator ads parading as live-betting commentary led to some serious blow back by lawmakers.
So far, just three sportsbooks have scheduled advertising during the face-off between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. That lineup includes DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM. Though the volume of sportsbook ads isn’t likely to be overwhelming, viewers can be assured that those three ads will be Super Bowl-friend. That is to say, they will be completely over-the-top and packed with celebrity cameos.