The U.S. gambling industry spent $3.9 billion on marketing in 2025.

$520 million went to celebrity and athlete endorsements. $60 million went to responsible gambling programs and communications.

That is 8.7 to 1.

Highest imbalance of any regulated American consumer category with a public-health dimension. Higher than tobacco at the peak of the pre-settlement era. Higher than alcohol. Nowhere near what pharmaceutical DTC advertising is required by the FDA to run.

No publicly traded operator has defended the number in any investor communication I have been able to find.

The 5W Research Division published the Responsible Gambling Communications Audit 2026 — 30 operators, 47,000+ earned media articles, 180+ ESG disclosures and 10-K filings, 240+ state regulator filings, and 2,400+ AI engine queries across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. The 8.7-to-1 ratio is the headline. What the ratio triggers is the story. Everything-PR's coverage of the audit breaks down the operator-by-operator findings.

Three things happen when a regulated consumer industry runs an 8.7-to-1 imbalance. All three are already in motion.

One — ESG stopped being a marketing conversation

Sustainalytics, MSCI ESG, and ISS ESG have all begun including responsible gambling investment as a percentage of total marketing in research notes on Flutter Entertainment, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and DraftKings. Not as a footnote. As an input to the score.

The mechanics: Sustainalytics rates companies on unmanaged risk exposure. A disclosed RG investment number — even a low one — enters the model as managed. An undisclosed number enters as unmanaged. Operators that publish the metric receive credit. Operators that don't get penalized without ever seeing a finding they can respond to.

Four of twelve publicly traded U.S. gambling operators disclose RG investment as a percentage of marketing spend. Eight don't. Every one of those eight is being modeled by ESG desks on the assumption that the number, if disclosed, would embarrass them.

The institutional side is where it lands. CalPERS, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, and CalSTRS all hold gambling equities under mandates that intersect with this disclosure. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund — $1.7 trillion AUM — already excludes tobacco outright. Gambling has sat in a different bucket. That bucket is being re-examined.

The 8.7-to-1 ratio is no longer a marketing decision. It is a capital markets metric.

The international benchmark makes the U.S. number worse

The UK Gambling Commission has required licensed operators to publish annual figures on player-protection investment since 2020. Entain, Flutter's UK arm, and Bet365's UK entity all publish. The ratios run 2-to-1 to 3-to-1. Australia's Interactive Gambling Act — following 2023 reforms — pushed operators toward comparable ranges. The Netherlands KSA regulator now conditions license renewals on documented responsible gambling communications spend.

In each market, disclosure is mandatory. In the U.S., it is voluntary. That gap is why American operators score worst on this metric globally — and why capital allocators investing across regions increasingly view U.S.-listed gambling equities as the highest disclosure risk in the sector.

The historical parallel — and why it should scare the industry

Between 1998 and 2003, the U.S. tobacco industry — post-Master Settlement Agreement — drove its equivalent ratio from double-digit imbalance to below 1.5-to-1. Not because the companies discovered a conscience. Because the settlement created a legal, financial, and reputational cost structure that made the old ratio unaffordable. Everything-PR's cross-category analysis maps gambling's ratio against tobacco, alcohol, and pharma — the comparison is not flattering.

The mechanism was not regulation alone. It was the combination of regulation, state attorney general litigation, ESG divestment, and — most decisively — a consistent public narrative that the industry had been over-marketing while under-communicating harm. Once that narrative locked, the ratio was corrected by force.

Gambling is not tobacco. Different product, different addiction profile, different regulatory structure. But the communications ratio is worse than tobacco's ever was at its peak. The narrative-formation ingredients — ESG scrutiny, state AG interest, plaintiff-bar attention, congressional hearings on youth exposure — are all present now.

The industry can correct the ratio voluntarily, on its own terms. Or it can wait until it is corrected for them. History says the second option costs more.

Two — the pre-legalization penalty is compounding

Michigan legalized sports betting in 2021. Ohio in 2023. North Carolina in 2024. In each of the three most recent major state launches, operators that had published responsible gambling content in state-specific media and engaged with regulators before legalization achieved measurably faster licensing, cleaner initial market share, and less aggressive advertising restrictions.

State gaming commissioners — especially in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Nevada — have publicly named the small group of operators who engage proactively outside mandatory reporting cycles. Everyone else is on the reactive list. That list is not published. It is remembered.

The next round is the largest greenfield in U.S. gambling history. California. Texas. Florida. Georgia. Minnesota. Missouri. The operators showing up now — publishing responsible gambling content, appearing at legislature hearings, partnering with state-level treatment providers — are building a compounding regulatory advantage that translates directly into licensing speed, market share, and post-launch advertising latitude.

Three — AI is the layer the industry hasn't priced in

The audit ran 2,400 queries across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. When consumers ask which gambling operators have the strongest responsible gambling programs, BetMGM is named in 78% of responses. DraftKings in 64%. Six other major operators appear in fewer than 20%. Two in fewer than 5%.

The two operators cited most often are not necessarily the largest spenders on responsible gambling. They are the two that built the content infrastructure — operator-controlled landing pages, executive bylines, partnership announcements with the National Council on Problem Gambling and Kindbridge Behavioral Health, structured schema, cross-linked authority. AI engines can only cite what has been published, indexed, and authoritatively linked. Everything-PR documented why the bots don't like gambling — the structural reasons AI engines suppress or misrepresent gambling operators.

BetMGM's dominance is not accidental. Over three years, MGM Resorts built a content layer around GameSense — structured, linked from earned media in Forbes and Fortune, reinforced by executive commentary. The engines index this and repeat it. Every prompt about responsible gambling returns BetMGM. That is a moat. It compounds daily.

Contrast Stake.us — scoring 22 out of 100, appearing in fewer than 4% of AI responsible gambling responses. Heavy spend on Drake and UFC. Almost nothing an AI engine can cite on player protection. The AI answer is a summary of critical news coverage and Reddit threads.

The full picture: 5W Sports Betting & Gaming AI Visibility Index 2026 — top 25 U.S. operators ranked by Citation Share across all four major AI engines.

The land-based casino case

MGM Resorts, Caesars, Wynn Resorts, Hard Rock International, and every regional operator run on-property signage, brochures, self-exclusion kiosks, and trained supervisors. The most established responsible gambling infrastructure in the industry. Almost none of it translates into earned media, digital content, or structured data an AI engine can cite.

MGM scored 81 out of 100 — highest in the study. Las Vegas Sands scored 41. The difference is not program quality. It is the presence or absence of the communications infrastructure that lets investors, regulators, and AI engines see the programs.

iGaming is worse

Seven states legal. $12.8 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2025. Lowest communications investment per revenue dollar of any segment studied. Most iGaming operators lean on parent-company sportsbook RG content — as if iGaming and sports betting were the same product. Different demographics, session patterns, addiction indicators, intervention windows.

New Jersey is the tell. The Division of Gaming Enforcement has filed public commentary noting iGaming-specific responsible gambling messaging lags behind sports betting messaging — same brand, same state, same year. The Gaming & Gambling Earned Media Playbook maps the content architecture operators need to close this gap.

What has to change

Five actions. Twelve months. All measurable.

One. Disclose responsible gambling spend as a percentage of marketing budget — in 10-Ks, ESG reports, investor day decks. The number does not need to be large in year one. It needs to be visible.

Two. Build owned-media responsible gambling infrastructure AI engines can cite — operator-controlled landing pages with entity markup, executive bylines in Forbes, Fortune, Adweek, PRWeek, partnership announcements with NCPG, Kindbridge, and state-level treatment programs. This is the GEO layer — Generative Engine Optimization.

Three. Get executives visible on responsible gambling outside crisis windows. The CEOs who show up on RG panels and in third-party research when there is no crisis compound authority in a market where authority is scarce.

Four. Engage regulators in states you do not yet operate in. The commissioners in California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, and Missouri are being briefed by their peers in Massachusetts, Nevada, and New Jersey.

Five. Move 3–5 percentage points of marketing budget from awareness channels toward earned media, executive visibility, responsible gambling communications, and GEO content. At the $3.9 billion industry marketing base — that is $117M to $195M reallocated. It registers in every ESG rating, every licensing decision, and every AI-generated answer a consumer sees.

The window

Five years. Most visible advertising ecosystem in American consumer marketing. Every stadium, every podcast, every broadcast timeout, every social feed. The awareness layer is complete.

The credibility layer is not. The gap is measurable. Regulators see it. ESG desks see it. AI engines describe operators with it or without it — permanently, at scale.

Tobacco's ratio was corrected by settlement. Alcohol's by category consolidation. Pharma's by FDA rule. Gambling's ratio will be corrected. The only question: the industry's timeline — or someone else's.

Fix the ratio. Or inherit the answer.

Read the full 5W Responsible Gambling Communications Audit 2026.

Frequently Asked

Q: What is the 8.7-to-1 ratio in gambling?
A: The U.S. gambling industry spent $520 million on celebrity endorsements and $60 million on responsible gambling in 2025 — an 8.7-to-1 ratio. It is the highest imbalance of any regulated American consumer category with a public-health dimension, higher than tobacco at the peak of the pre-settlement era.

Q: Why is the 8.7-to-1 ratio a capital markets problem?
A: Sustainalytics, MSCI ESG, and ISS ESG have begun including responsible gambling investment as a percentage of total marketing in research notes on Flutter, MGM, Caesars, and DraftKings. Eight of twelve publicly traded U.S. gambling operators do not disclose RG investment — they are being modeled on the assumption that the number would embarrass them. Institutional holders including CalPERS, Norges Bank, and CalSTRS hold gambling equities under ESG mandates that intersect with this disclosure.

Q: How does the U.S. gambling industry compare to the UK and Australia on responsible gambling spend?
A: The UK Gambling Commission requires operators to publish annual player-protection investment figures. UK ratios run 2-to-1 to 3-to-1. Australia's Interactive Gambling Act pushed operators toward comparable ranges. In the U.S., disclosure is voluntary — American operators score worst on this metric globally.

Q: Which gambling operators have the highest AI Citation Share for responsible gambling?
A: BetMGM is named in 78% of AI engine responses about responsible gambling. DraftKings appears in 64%. Six major operators appear in fewer than 20%. The two leaders built content infrastructure — operator-controlled landing pages, executive bylines, NCPG and Kindbridge partnerships, structured schema — that AI engines can index and repeat.

Q: Who is Ronn Torossian?
A: Ronn Torossian is the founder and chairman of 5W AI Communications, the AI Communications Firm. He is the publisher of Everything-PR and the author of two best-selling editions of For Immediate Release.

Related

Ronn Torossian is the founder and chairman of 5W AI Communications, the AI Communications Firm. He is the publisher of Everything-PR and the author of two best-selling editions of For Immediate Release.