I have been in public relations for more than two decades. I have watched brands in almost every industry make some version of the same mistake: they spend heavily on channels that generate reach, and almost nothing on the channels that generate trust. They confuse awareness with credibility. They treat PR as a support function rather than a strategic investment.
The U.S. gambling industry is doing this more aggressively than almost any category I have observed. And today, 5WPR published the data to prove it.
The Gaming Trust Index is 5WPR’s first annual study of marketing spend allocation and brand credibility outcomes across the top U.S. sports betting, online gaming, and land-based casino operators. The numbers are striking.
$3.9 Billion. Less Than 4% on Earned Media.
Total industry marketing spend in 2025: $3.9 billion. Television: $1.42 billion. Celebrity partnerships: $520 million. Responsible gambling programs: $60 million. Earned media and PR: $90 million.
That is 2.3% of total spend going to the channel with the highest documented return on brand credibility. The industry spent more than five times as much on celebrity deals as it spent on responsible gambling communications and PR combined.
I want to be precise about what this means. It is not that television advertising is without value. Reach matters, especially in newly legal markets. But the U.S. sports betting market is not newly legal. Thirty-eight states have legalized. The market has been building for five years. At this stage of maturity, the competition is not primarily about awareness. It is about credibility, retention, and regulatory goodwill. Those require different investments.
The Celebrity Ratio Is a Liability
The $520 million celebrity figure is the one I find most telling. Major operators have built campaigns around marquee athletes and entertainers across every major sport. These campaigns work on the metrics they are designed to hit. They drive app downloads. They generate social engagement. They build brand recall.
What they do not build is owned credibility. Celebrity endorsement is borrowed trust. It belongs to the celebrity, not the operator. When the campaign ends, the borrowed credibility goes with it.
More practically: the industry spent $520 million on celebrity deals and $60 million on responsible gambling programs. That nearly 9-to-1 ratio is visible to every state regulator evaluating a legalization bill, every ESG analyst covering publicly traded operators, every legislator in California, Texas, and Florida deciding whether to move forward. It is not a comfortable ratio to defend.
The Land-Based Casino Blind Spot
The finding in the Gaming Trust Index that I think has been most overlooked is about land-based casino. MGM, Caesars, Wynn, Hard Rock — these are among the most recognized brands in American consumer culture. They generate millions of monthly branded searches. Extraordinary organic digital presence.
Almost none of those search results contain operator-controlled content. Review sites. Financial reporting. Regulatory news. When someone searches a major casino brand today, the story they encounter is written by everyone except the operator.
This matters more now because of how AI search works. When an AI tool synthesizes information about a casino brand, it draws from whatever content ranks for that brand. The operators who are not building owned and earned content ecosystems are not just missing an opportunity. They are actively ceding their narrative to third parties every day they wait.
The Online Gaming Window Is Open Right Now
Online gaming — iCasino and iPoker — generated $12.8 billion in revenue in 2025 across seven legal states. New York, Illinois, Indiana, and Virginia are in active legislative consideration. The operators building earned media presence in those states now will have a structural advantage when those markets open that advertising spend at launch cannot replicate.
We know this from Michigan’s 2021 launch. Operators with pre-existing earned media presence in the state achieved faster initial user acquisition than those who arrived with advertising budgets alone. The window is open now. It closes at legalization.
What Should Change
The argument is not complicated. Move 3 to 5 percentage points of the total marketing budget from low-credibility-return channels to high-credibility-return channels. Build earned media infrastructure. Invest in executive visibility. Treat responsible gambling as a brand pillar, not a compliance checkbox. Build digital content that shapes what AI search tools say about your brand.
At $3.9 billion in total industry spend, that reallocation is $120 to $200 million redirected toward the channels that build the equity the industry needs for its next phase. That is not a radical ask. It is a straightforward business decision.
The full Gaming Trust Index 2026 is available free at 5wpr.com/research/gaming-trust-index-2026.
