The Billion Dollar Bet on Sports Fans
By Josiah Bates
“Today, sports gambling is part of a sprawling ecosystem built around fan engagement.”
Ronny Carter grew up a diehard NBA fan, and his favorite moments are Game 7s. To him, a Game 7 in the playoffs is the purest form of high-stakes basketball. The deeper into the playoffs, the better. So when the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs were facing off in Game 7 of the 2026 Western Conference Finals with a chance to appear in the NBA Finals on the line, he wasn’t going to miss it.
Dragging his wife with him, Carter went to a bar outside his Detroit hometown to watch it. He’s not a fan of either team, but he happened to be sitting next to someone he believed was a Thunder fan because of his reactions to blunders or success from the Thunder. The person fidgeted throughout the game, rocking back and forth and clenching his fists. The Thunder lost 111–103, ending their season. Carter apologized to the fan, who hesitated before responding.
“I don’t care about the Thunder. Holmgren messed up my parlay,” the fan said, referring to the Thunder’s big man Chet Holmgren, who finished the game with just four points and four rebounds.
A parlay is a single bet that connects two or more individual wagers. For the parlay to win, all the wagers need to win. Carter wasn’t too surprised. Throughout the night, he noticed people around the bar scrolling through betting apps, refreshing their screens, and checking on their bets.
“I think that’s part of being a sports fan today,” Carter said.
Since the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on sports betting in 2018, wagering on sports has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. As a result, the biggest change may not be how Americans gamble but how they consume sports.
Today, sports gambling is part of a sprawling ecosystem built around fan engagement. The NFL, NBA, and other major leagues have signed sponsorship and data-sharing agreements with sportsbooks, as media companies have incorporated odds, betting-focused programming, and advertising into their coverage. While FanDuel and DraftKings control around 80% of the U.S. sports betting market, leagues, media companies, and creators have found other ways to profit. The NBA, for example, has partnerships with Sportradar and Genius Sports, allowing official league data to flow directly to licensed betting operations.
The result is a shift in what it means to be a sports fan. For many, following a team exists alongside tracking betting lines, player props, and predictions. That’s turned sports fandom into an economic engine that’s generating revenue across the board. “To think that you’re at the intersection between sports and gambling and technology and media and all of those sectors are changing? That’s pretty exciting,” Amy Howe, the CEO of FanDuel, said in a Q&A last year.
Jarrett Spence, a Baltimore-based NBA and WNBA reporter, has watched the shift play out across sports media. Betting content, he said, has become nearly impossible to ignore. “A lot of sports channels and sports media outlets have been catering toward sports betting. Everywhere you go, you’re seeing it.”
The growth of sports betting has also created opportunities for a new generation of content creators. Spence points to social media accounts, podcasts, and YouTube channels built entirely around betting advice. Many now function as intermediaries between sportsbooks and fans while helping to make wagering a routine part of sports conversations. “I’ve seen content where people are literally tailoring their work toward betting odds,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean sports betting has replaced regular fandom. Someone like Carter, who watches the NBA playoffs for the drama, stakes, and competition, knows the experience surrounding those games has changed. Conversations that once centered on teams and championships now often include player props, parlays, and betting lines.
“A lot of sports channels and sports media outlets have been catering towards sports betting”
That’s part of the reason betting has become such a powerful force within sports culture. It doesn’t ask fans to abandon their loyalty. Instead, it offers additional ways to engage in the same game. Howe describes FanDuel’s future as one that gives users greater control over how they interact with games, saying the company is “really putting control into the sports fans’ hands.”
Carter still plans to go out and watch Game 7s, but he also knows that the experience around those games has changed. The man next to him didn’t care who made it to the NBA Finals. He was just worried about his parlay. “We were both into the game for different reasons,” Carter said. “That’s just how it is being a sports fan today.”
