Sports Betting Apps Rise in the U.S. as States Open Their Doors to the Category

In this fifth and final excerpt from our State of Sports Apps report, we analyze the performance of sports betting apps in the United States by downloads and the impact of major sporting events on their growth, based on data from Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence platform.

Since the federal ban on sports betting was lifted in May 2018, new Sports Betting apps debuted on the App Store including DraftKings Sportsbook, FanDuel Sportsbook, and BetAmerica. TwinSpires, from Churchill Downs, provided horse race betting for events such as the Kentucky Derby and Breeders Cup. Churchill Downs released a new sports betting app, BetAmerica, in 2019.

Sports betting in 2019 was driven by events such as the Super Bowl and March Madness, and this will likely continue in 2020. DraftKings Sportsbook and FanDuel Sportsbook were only available in New Jersey as of mid 2019. FanDuel Sportsbook added Pennsylvania in July and saw downloads jump ahead of DraftKings Sportsbook as a result. FanDuel Sportsbook also added West Virginia in late August.

Sports betting is currently not allowed on Google Play in the U.S., so DraftKings Sportsbook and FanDuel Sportsbook are only available on Apple’s App Store. Apps focus on key events in the year to drive downloads, which is evidenced by FanDuel Sportsbook and DraftKings Sportsbook’s large download spikes for the Super Bowl and March Madness in 2019. Sports betting is still only a small part of the Sports app space in the U.S. Among top Sports apps, sports betting accounted for less than 2 percent of U.S. downloads in the first half of 2019. As various states legalize sports betting in the U.S., expect FanDuel and DraftKings sports betting apps to expand accordingly. Eleven states have legalized sports betting as of early August 2019, though not all allow for online sports betting.

Interested in seeing additional sports apps insights? Download a free copy of our State of Sports Apps report below:

Sensor Tower's Store Intelligence platform is an Enterprise level offering. Store Intelligence users can see app download estimates for the above apps in addition to historical performance metrics on the Sensor Tower platform. Our download estimates are from the App Store and Google Play worldwide between January 1, 2017 and August 31, 2019, and include daily download totals. Apple apps and Google pre-installed apps are excluded. Android estimates do not include third-party stores.