‘Bet Now’: How Wagering Apps’ Push Notification Ads Bombard Consumers

Millions of Americans who bet on sports or trade on prediction markets may share a familiar frustration: their phone won’t stop pinging them with offers to place another bet and there’s not much they can do about it. Yesterday, TINA.org joined the National Consumers League, the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, the National Council on Problem Gambling and the Public Health Advocacy Institute in petitioning the Federal Trade Commission to do something about it.

The petition asks the commission to open a rulemaking that would require sports betting and prediction market applications, i.e., wagering applications, to get express written consent before sending marketing push notifications and to give users a way to opt out of receiving the ads without also losing alerts about their account security and balances.

Why this matters now

Mobile betting has exploded. Sports betting revenue climbed toward $17 billion in 2025, and the total amount wagered nationwide reached $167 billion. Prediction markets have grown even faster: monthly trading volume went from roughly $100 million to more than $24 billion in just two years. DraftKings and FanDuel alone account for the large majority of the sports-betting market, and prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have steadily climbed the Apple App Store charts.

This growth has been powered in part by push notification ads. Industry data cited in the petition shows notifications can boost user engagement and retention dramatically, and an NCL report found that the majority of the notifications sent by the leading sportsbook apps concern marketing, not account updates — many with direct calls to action like “bet now.”

The core problem: no real off-switch

The petition’s central complaint is simple. Most of these apps don’t let users turn off promotional notifications without also shutting off notifications for things like login alerts or security warnings. To the extent they are aware of the option, users are stuck between choosing to receive a constant stream of betting prompts or missing out on critical account alerts. That’s a stark contrast with how the same companies already handle communications via email and text, where opt-outs for marketing are standard while transactional messages keep flowing – a distinction that federal law already recognizes for those channels through the CAN-SPAM Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

What’s the big deal?

The stakes behind this fight are serious. Public health researchers have flagged mobile betting as uniquely risky because it offers continuous, frictionless access to gambling, and push notifications are considered one of the most effective tools for driving repeat engagement. The consequences can be severe: people with gambling disorders have the highest suicide rate of any addiction disorder, according to one study, with 19% reporting they’d contemplated suicide in the past year. Gambling losses have also been linked to a rise in intimate partner violence, and expanded access to mobile sports betting has been tied to a jump in personal bankruptcies. Survey data adds more color: a quarter of sports bettors say they’ve missed a bill payment because of gambling losses, and roughly a quarter consider themselves addicted to sports betting – a share that climbs even higher among Gen Z bettors.

The bottom line? Constant marketing notifications aren’t just an annoyance for people already navigating these risks – they’re a direct behavioral prompt toward a product tied to serious financial and psychological harm.

Protecting young users

The petition also raises alarms about younger users. Surveys cited show a significant share of adults report having placed a sports bet before turning 21, and separate research found a large percentage of teenage boys reported gambling activity in the past year. Because prediction markets are generally open to users starting at 18 – younger than the age floor for sports betting in most states, and available regardless of state betting laws – the petition argues they create a new on-ramp to gambling-style products for people who couldn’t otherwise legally place a bet.

What the petition asks for

The petition is not seeking a ban on gambling ads. Rather, the petition requests that the commission require wagering apps to:

1. Obtain consumer consent before an app can send marketing push notifications – separate from consent for security or account alerts.
2. Provide simple opt-out mechanisms for marketing push notifications.
3. Disclose the frequency of marketing push notifications the app delivers to consumers who provide consent.

The petition notes that DraftKings already added a marketing-notification toggle after NCL’s 2025 report, showing the ask is technically realistic – even if FanDuel, BetMGM and the leading prediction-market apps haven’t followed suit.

Why TINA.org is involved

As a nonprofit that investigates deceptive marketing, TINA.org has tracked ad practices in sports betting and prediction markets, including advertising claims and the class-action litigation they’ve generated. Joining this petition extends that work to a specific tactic: using push notifications to advertise gambling products without giving consumers the same basic controls – consent and an opt-out – that already apply to marketing emails and texts.

The petition argues this is squarely the kind of “unfair practice” the FTC has authority to address, since it causes substantial consumer harm, isn’t something people can reasonably avoid on their own, and doesn’t offer any benefits that would outweigh the harm.

While we wait to see if the FTC will open a rulemaking, consumers who use wagering apps and want to reduce unwanted betting notifications currently have limited options: check whether their app offers a marketing-specific toggle (as DraftKings does now) or disable notifications altogether and accept the tradeoff of missing account alerts too.