There is no single, settled answer to how many sports bettors also play online slots because the figure depends entirely on how you measure it. Self-reported US survey data puts the share at roughly 35% of sports gamblers saying they also played online slots in the past year, while operator-side behavioral tracking and investor disclosures show a much higher overlap, with some sportsbooks reporting that more than half of their casino handle already comes from cross-sold sports bettors. The gap between these numbers is itself the story: it reveals how differently “cross-vertical play” is defined depending on who is counting.
Key takeaways
- A 2023 Harris Poll/NerdWallet survey found that 35% of US sports bettors said they also played online slots in the previous 12 months.
- Academic research published in the Journal of Financial Literacy and Wellbeing found that close to half of mobile sports bettors also gambled in a casino, even though only about one-fifth of casino gamblers placed a sports bet.
- Operator-disclosed figures are higher still: DraftKings has reported that roughly 62% of its online casino handle originates from its embedded casino product inside the sportsbook app.
- A pre-pandemic behavioral-tracking study of a large European operator found that 76% of regular sports bettors also played online casino games in the same period, though that overlap fell during COVID-19 sports suspensions.
- UK regulators have moved to restrict cross-selling mechanics directly, citing evidence of higher harm risk among multi-product gamblers.
Table of contents
What “cross-vertical play” actually measures
Cross-vertical play is usually reported one of three ways, and each method produces a different number. The first is a population survey, where a sample of self-identified sports bettors is asked whether they also gamble on slots or other casino games. The second is behavioral tracking, where researchers or operators look at the actual account activity of real players over a defined window. The third is a supply-side metric used internally by operators: the share of casino handle or revenue that originates from customers who were first acquired as sports bettors. These are not interchangeable. A survey captures intent and memory over a year; tracking data captures behavior in a specific period; and the operator metric captures economic contribution, which can be skewed by a small number of high-volume cross-sold accounts. Any headline percentage on this topic should be read alongside its source methodology, not treated as a universal constant.
Survey-based estimates: about a third of US sports bettors also play slots
The most-cited consumer-level figure for the US market comes from a Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of NerdWallet.
The online survey of over 2,000 U.S. adults was conducted by The Harris Poll from Dec. 14-18, 2023, on behalf of NerdWallet.
Within that sample,
respondents were asked about betting on sports (not including horse or dog racing) and found that 12% of Americans say they gambled on sports in the last 12 months.
Among that subgroup, cross-vertical participation was substantial:
sports gamblers also gambled in other ways, with 49% saying they also gambled with scratch-off lottery tickets, 43% playing jackpot games and 35% playing online slots.
That 35% figure is a useful consumer-level benchmark, but it blends occasional and frequent bettors together and relies on recall over a full year. It also predates several US operators’ aggressive push toward unified sportsbook-casino apps, so current self-reported overlap is likely higher in states where iGaming is legal. For context on who these bettors are in the first place, see our analysis of the age shift toward 18–39-year-old online gamblers, a cohort that overlaps heavily with both sports betting and slots adoption.
Behavioral-tracking estimates: operator data puts the overlap much higher
When researchers look at actual wallet activity rather than self-report, the overlap climbs. A 2025 study published in the Journal of Financial Literacy and Wellbeing examined US adults’ gambling behavior and found a striking asymmetry:
only one-fifth of casino gamblers also placed a mobile sports bet, although close to half of mobile sports bettors also engaged in casino gambling.
The baseline participation rates underline why:
15.3 percent of adults gambled in a casino over the previous year, compared to 10.7 percent who placed any sports bet.
The authors concluded that
the relationship suggests that online sports betting is expanding the gambling population, rather than replacing casino gambling.
Older behavioral-tracking data points in the same direction but at an even higher intensity. A study of a
large European online gambling operator comprising players from Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Norway
tracked regular sports bettors before the COVID-19 pandemic and found that
three-quarters of the sports bettors who wagered on sports in 5 out of the 10 calendar weeks between January 1 and March 7 also played online casino games in the same time period (76%)
. When sports schedules were suspended during lockdowns, that overlap fell rather than rose:
about two-thirds of sports bettors who wagered on sports in 5 out of the 10 calendar weeks between January 1 and March 7 also played online casino games between March 7 and April 30 (60%)
, a decline the researchers describe as a reduction, not a substitution effect. This matters for anyone assuming bettors simply migrate to slots whenever sports are unavailable; the data suggests engagement drops across both verticals together rather than shifting wholesale from one to the other. For more on how income and frequency interact with this kind of risk behavior, see our household income and betting frequency analysis.
The supply-side view: how casino revenue depends on sportsbook users
Publicly listed operators disclose a third kind of figure: what share of their casino revenue or handle is attributable to customers originally acquired through sports betting. These numbers are the clearest signal of how commercially important cross-vertical play has become, because they come from companies with a direct financial incentive to measure it precisely.
| Source | Population measured | Reported figure |
|---|---|---|
| Harris Poll / NerdWallet (2023 survey) | US adults who bet on sports in past 12 months | 35% also played online slots |
| Journal of Financial Literacy and Wellbeing (2025) | US mobile sports bettors | ~50% also gambled in a casino |
| European operator behavioral tracking (pre-COVID) | Regular sports bettors, 4-country player base | 76% also played online casino games |
| Delasport / Gaming Intelligence operator analysis | Sports-weighted bettors across a dozen brands | 39% played video slots; 25% played both live and slot casino |
| DraftKings Investor Day (2026) | DraftKings iGaming handle | 62% of casino handle from embedded sportsbook users |
| FanDuel Capital Markets Day (2022) | FanDuel customers in five iGaming states, 2018–2022 | 56% engaged with two or more products |
The DraftKings figure is the most recent and the most explicit:
as of March, the company reported that approximately 62 percent of DraftKings’ casino handle had been derived from its embedded casino products inside the sportsbook app.
FanDuel’s disclosures tell a similar story over a longer window:
in FanDuel’s five states with iGaming, 56% of its customers have engaged with two or more products from January 2018 through October 2022.
Earlier regulatory filings from FanDuel’s parent company show the trend was already established by 2019, when
54% of casino revenues came from sportsbook customers
in its home state. These figures are not population-wide participation rates; they describe how concentrated a single operator’s casino revenue is among bettors who started on the sportsbook side. For the revenue-concentration angle more broadly, see our breakdown of the 80/20 rule in casino revenue, since cross-sold bettors are disproportionately represented among high-value accounts.
Why the estimates range from 25% to 76%
The spread between the lowest and highest figures in the table above is not noise; it reflects three structural differences. First, a casual bettor who places one wager a month during football season is counted the same as a daily parlay bettor in a yes/no survey, but behavioral tracking studies typically filter for “regular” or “active” bettors, which inflates the overlap because frequent players are more exposed to cross-sell prompts. Second, jurisdiction matters: US respondents in a general-population poll include people in states without legal online casino products at all, mechanically capping the possible overlap, whereas European operator data comes from markets where both verticals have long been legal and integrated into one wallet. Third, operator-disclosed figures measure revenue or handle contribution, not headcount, so a smaller number of heavy cross-vertical players can generate a majority of casino handle even if most sports bettors never touch a slot.
Live casino vs. slots: bettors split unevenly
Within the casino side, sports bettors who do cross over do not default to slots. An analysis of more than 100,000 players across a dozen sportsbook brands, where the studied segment was defined as players
active for more than three months and who bet 70% of their wager on sports, with the remaining 30% in casino
, found that
live casino was the most popular with 46%, followed by video slots at 39%
. Few players engaged with both formats:
only 25% of the bettors played across both live and video slots.
The same analysis suggested a realistic industry benchmark, noting that
a good percentage for sports bettors who play at the casino will be 10% of total sports bettors.
That benchmark is a useful sanity check against some of the more optimistic operator-level cross-sell claims circulating in trade press. The demographic overlap driving this pattern is explored further in our analysis of the gender split in iGaming and in our coverage of Gen-Z bettors and micro-betting habits, since product preference within the casino vertical correlates with both age and the sports-betting behaviors players bring with them.
Regulatory pushback: restricting cross-sell mechanics
The commercial value of cross-vertical play has drawn regulatory attention, particularly in Great Britain. The Gambling Commission announced new rules stating that
gambling businesses will be banned from offering potentially harmful offers involving consumers having to carry out two or more types of gambling, such as betting and playing slots.
The regulator’s justification was explicit:
evidence shows consumers are more at risk of harm when they gamble on multiple products rather than a single product.
The rule targets a specific mechanic — bonuses that require a sports bet to unlock casino free spins, or vice versa — rather than banning cross-vertical play itself, but it is a direct regulatory acknowledgment that the multi-product behavior documented throughout this article carries a distinct risk profile worth constraining. Operators in licensed markets covered by our licensing and jurisdictions hub should expect similar scrutiny to spread as other regulators review their own promotional rulebooks.
What it means for players and operators
For operators, the economics are unambiguous: cross-sold customers are more valuable and the investor-day disclosures from DraftKings and FanDuel confirm that casino divisions are increasingly built on sportsbook acquisition rather than standalone marketing. That incentive structure is covered in more depth in our macro economics of iGaming hub. For players, the practical takeaway is that a sportsbook account is rarely just a sportsbook account once an operator has it — the same wallet, bonus engine and app real estate are engineered to surface slots and live tables during sporting downtime. Whether that overlap shows up in population statistics at 10%, 35%, or 76% depends entirely on who is doing the counting, but every methodology points the same direction: the two verticals are converging, not staying separate.
Frequently asked questions
Is there one definitive percentage of sports bettors who also play slots?
No. Self-reported US survey data puts the figure around 35%, academic behavioral-tracking studies find overlaps between 50% and 76% among regular bettors, and operator disclosures describe handle contribution rather than headcount. Each method answers a different question, so treat any single percentage as context-specific rather than universal.
Why do behavioral-tracking studies show higher overlap than surveys?
Tracking studies typically sample active or regular bettors, who are more exposed to in-app cross-sell prompts and bonus mechanics, while surveys include occasional, once-a-year bettors who may never see a casino offer. Frequency bias inflates the tracked figure relative to the self-reported one.
Did sports bettors switch to slots when sports were cancelled during COVID-19?
Evidence from a large European operator’s tracking data showed the opposite: overlap between sports betting and online casino play fell during the sports suspension rather than rising, suggesting bettors reduced overall activity instead of substituting one product for another.
Are regulators trying to stop cross-vertical play?
Not entirely. Great Britain’s Gambling Commission banned bonus offers that require engagement with two product types, citing higher harm risk from multi-product gambling, but it did not prohibit players from using both verticals independently of promotional incentives.
Methodology
GamblScout.com’s algorithm does not run its own population survey for this topic. Instead, it aggregates publicly disclosed operator KPIs (investor day presentations, SEC/regulatory filings), peer-reviewed behavioral-tracking studies, and syndicated consumer polling, then flags the measurement type behind each figure before it informs our scoring. For how we weight cross-sell mechanics in our operator scores, see the scoring system and algorithmic weights hub; for how we scrape and verify the underlying data, see our data scraping and technical engine hub.
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