Sportsbook Responsible Gambling AI Rankings: BetMGM 78%

ChatGPT names BetMGM in 78% of responses and DraftKings in 64% when asked which sportsbook has the strongest responsible gambling program, according to 5W's Responsible Gambling Communications Audit 2026. Six other major operators appear in fewer than 20% of responses, and FanDuel, the revenue leader, trails both on the audit's index. The audit measures communications and disclosure, not how well each operator's program works.

What did the responsible gambling audit measure?

The 5W Responsible Gambling Communications Audit 2026 reviewed 30 U.S.-facing gambling operators over 24 months, from May 1, 2024 to April 30, 2026. It covered more than 47,000 earned media articles, more than 180 ESG disclosures and 10-K filings, more than 240 state regulator filings and testimony transcripts, and more than 2,400 queries across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, according to 5W's audit page.

The audit scores each operator on a 100-point index across five areas: disclosure quality, program depth, earned media, executive visibility and AI answer retrievability. It does not judge whether an operator's responsible gambling program works. Gambling Insider reported that the audit ran 12 standardized prompts across the five AI engines for the AI portion.

Which sportsbooks led the index?

MGM Resorts International scored highest overall at 81, and BetMGM Sportsbook led the sports betting group at 78, according to 5W. Among the operators named in the release:

Gambling Insider reported that the lowest-ranked sports betting operators were ESPN Bet, Fanatics Sportsbook and bet365. Smaller operators and tribal gaming entities were reviewed but are not shown in the public release.

Why did AI name BetMGM and DraftKings most often?

The audit says operators with larger libraries of published responsible gambling content appeared more often in AI answers about player protection and trust. BetMGM benefits from the GameSense program that MGM Resorts already publishes at scale, according to PlayUSA's coverage of the audit. This is a reading of the pattern and not a tested cause.

The practical point for operators is that AI tools answer from content they can retrieve. A sportsbook with a deep, dated, well-structured library on responsible gambling gives an AI tool more to quote than one with a thin page, whatever each spends on advertising. For the discipline behind this, see gambling public relations.

What else did the audit find?

The audit found that the industry spent far more on celebrity partnerships than on responsible gambling communications. Four findings stand out, all from 5W's release:

• The U.S. gambling industry spent about $520 million on celebrity and athlete partnerships in 2025, which 5W says is 8.7 times its spending on responsible gambling communications.
• Only 4 of 12 publicly traded operators disclose responsible gambling investment as a percentage of marketing spend.
• In 11 of 38 legal markets, state gaming commissioners receive proactive responsible gambling communications from fewer than three operators per year.
• In Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, operators that published responsible gambling content in state media before legalization achieved faster regulatory approval.

What does the audit recommend operators do?

The audit recommends five communications investments:

1. Disclose responsible gambling investment as a percentage of marketing spend.
2. Build owned content that AI tools can cite.
3. Establish executive visibility on responsible gambling outside crisis windows.
4. Engage regulators early in markets that have not yet legalized.
5. Move 3 to 5 percentage points of marketing budget toward earned media at parity with celebrity partnerships, which 5W estimates at $117 million to $195 million across the industry.

Measure results with Citation Share prompts run before and after the content is published. The same logic applies to sponsors and leagues, covered in the sports PR guide.

What are the limits of the audit?

The audit is 5W's own research, and 5W chose the prompts, the scoring and the weights. The index is a snapshot of communications and disclosure, not a verdict on operator conduct, and AI answers change as tools update. The earlier version of this page also gave market share figures for each operator, details of Reddit's role in AI answers, and several operator scores that could not be confirmed from the published materials, so those were removed.

Frequently asked questions

Which sportsbook does ChatGPT name for responsible gambling?

ChatGPT named BetMGM in 78% of responses and DraftKings in 64% for the strongest responsible gambling program, according to 5W's audit.

What is the 5W RG Communications Index?

It is a 100-point score of how well an operator communicates and discloses its responsible gambling work, not of how well the program itself works.

How much did gambling operators spend on celebrity partnerships?

The audit says about $520 million in 2025, or 8.7 times the spending on responsible gambling communications.

Published July 3, 2026. Rebuilt October 2026. Drafted with AI assistance and checked against 5W's audit page, Gambling Insider and PlayUSA coverage, and Everything-PR summaries. Audit figures are 5W's and were not re-checked against the underlying dataset.