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A new audit finds that only 11 of 38 legal sports betting states get proactive responsible gambling outreach from more than a handful of operators a year. 5W founder Ronn Torossian says that’s the easy part to fix.
US gambling operators spent $520 million on celebrity and athlete endorsements in 2025. They spent $60 million on responsible gambling communications.
That’s an 8.7-to-1 ratio, and it’s the headline finding in 5W’s Responsible Gambling Communications Audit 2026. The 24-month review covers spending and regulator engagement across 30 operators in sports betting, iGaming and land-based casinos.
In 11 of the 38 states with legal sports betting, gaming regulators say they hear proactively from fewer than three operators a year on responsible gambling — outside of mandatory filings. In the rest of the states, the audit found even less proactive contact; most operators engage only when a specific incident or licensing requirement forces it.
Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W, the AI communications firm, walked PlayUSA through the audit’s core findings, including:
- Why does gambling’s ratio have no real precedent in other regulated industries?
- What is driving the “pre-legalization penalty” seen in Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina?
- Why do AI platforms like ChatGPT cite BetMGM and DraftKings on responsible gambling far more often than market leader FanDuel?
The ratio gambling can’t explain away
Every other regulated industry with a public health impact reached its current ratio through outside pressure, Torossian said.
Tobacco settled at roughly 1.5-to-1 after a $206 billion legal settlement and FCC restrictions. Pharma sits near 1-to-1 because the FDA mandates risk disclosure with every ad — which is why medication commercials end with a long list of potential side effects. Alcohol runs at about 4-to-1 because trade groups built self-regulation before Washington forced the issue.
Gambling never had that reckoning. “Gambling hasn’t had its settlement moment yet,” Torossian said.
“It’s had five years of explosive growth since PASPA fell, and the entire industry built its business model around customer acquisition. $520 million on athletes and celebrities to get people to download an app. $60 million on responsible gambling, because nobody made them spend more.”
He doesn’t expect that to hold much longer. Legislators in California, Texas and Florida are already citing the ratio. “The industry can fix this voluntarily, or it can wait for someone to fix it for them,” he said. “History says which one is cheaper.”
Why early responsible gambling content matters
The audit also flagged what Torossian calls the “pre-legalization penalty.” In Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, operators that published responsibility content before their markets opened got faster regulatory approval.
Torossian doesn’t see that as regulators handing out favors. Publishing responsible gambling content 18 months before launch requires real infrastructure.
“A commissioner who’s seen an operator’s name attached to responsible gambling coverage for a year and a half walks into that licensing conversation with less to worry about,” he said. “That’s not favoritism. That’s a regulator doing their job with more information instead of less.”
The operators that skip it aren’t necessarily running worse programs, he added. They’re just asking a regulator to take their compliance on faith, right when that regulator has the least patience for it.
Compliance isn’t the same as communication
The engagement gap is where the audit gets most immediately actionable. Torossian described healthy cadence as a relationship, not a filing deadline: proactive outreach whenever a product change touches player protection, and a standing presence at the meetings where regulators actually show up.
Few operators clear that bar. In most states, regulators say they hear from an operator once a year, usually attached to a mandatory report.
It isn’t a money problem, Torossian said. An industry spending $60 million a year on responsible gambling can afford quarterly emails to a gaming commission. The real issue is structural.
“RG communications sits inside compliance departments instead of communications departments,” he said. “Compliance teams are built to satisfy minimum reporting requirements. They are not built to build relationships. Nobody in that structure is incentivized to pick up the phone with a regulator when there’s no mandatory reason to.”
Move responsible gambling communications into the same function that handles investor relations and executive visibility, he argued, and the cadence problem largely fixes itself.
Building responsible gambling into new markets
Several states are actively debating sports betting expansion. Torossian pointed to Texas, Georgia, and Minnesota as states holding leverage they’ll never have again once operators are already live.
He’d build three things into any new framework before a single license gets issued.
- First, mandatory, recurring disclosure of responsible gambling spend.
This spend should be a percentage of total marketing spend — not a one-time filing at the time of application. Four of 12 public operators already disclose that voluntarily, he noted. It should be all 12, and it should be law rather than a nice-to-have.
- Second, formal credit in licensing criteria for pre-application engagement — the same signal Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina rewarded informally.
- Third, attention to how AI platforms are already shaping public perception before a market even opens.
“The operators your residents will find when they ask ChatGPT or Perplexity which sportsbook is safest are already being decided right now, based on who’s publishing content today in markets that haven’t even legalized yet,” he said.
“If a state wants its residents to get accurate information once betting is legal, that content infrastructure needs to exist before launch day, not after.”
AI is shaping sportsbook reputations
Among the audit’s more unusual findings: When asked which sportsbook is safest, ChatGPT names BetMGM in 78% of responses and DraftKings in 64%. FanDuel, the market leader, shows up in just 41%.
Torossian chalks that up to two entirely different competitions. FanDuel’s responsible gambling program includes deposit-limit defaults, an NCPG partnership and a dedicated RG executive. None of that shows up in the citation numbers. Part of the gap comes from BetMGM’s built-in edge: the GameSense infrastructure MGM Resorts already publishes at scale.
“AI engines don’t audit programs. They cite content,” he said. “FanDuel can have the best responsible gambling infrastructure in the sports betting segment and still lose the ChatGPT answer to a competitor who published more about theirs.”
Should regulators try to manage how AI engines represent operators? Torossian’s answer is no. “That’s not a regulator’s job, and it’s not a fight they can win,” he said.
What regulators can do is require the underlying disclosure so accurate material exists for AI engines to index. “The fix isn’t regulating the mirror. It’s giving operators a reason to stand in front of it.”
Why the spending ratio could gain momentum
The National Council on Problem Gambling and the Responsible Online Gaming Association now have a number they can hand to any legislator working on a sports betting file. Torossian expects disclosure requirements to move first.
A mandate requiring operators to report RG spend as a share of marketing budget is close to unopposable in a hearing room, given that a third of public operators already do it voluntarily.
He’s more skeptical that lawmakers will legislate the ratio itself. A hard spending floor invites a First Amendment and commercial speech fight, he said, one the industry would litigate for years, much as tobacco and alcohol restrictions were challenged. He doesn’t expect that fight in the next legislative cycle.
What he does expect is for the number to become a fixture. “This number doesn’t need to become a rule,” he said. “It just needs to keep showing up in the hearing room.”
Disclosure could be the quickest win
Asked what operators could act on fastest, Torossian didn’t hesitate.
“Disclosure. Full stop,” he said. “It’s a number that already sits in someone’s spreadsheet. The only decision left is whether to put it in the annual report.”
Four of 12 public operators already report RG spend as a percentage of marketing budget. The accounting mechanism already exists across the industry — unlike the AI citation gap, which needs sustained content publishing before engines index and reward it, or the regulator relationship gap, which takes years to build credibly. Disclosure could show up in an operator’s next earnings call.
“The operators who disclose voluntarily now get to look like they got ahead of something,” Torossian said. “The operators who wait get to look like they got caught.”
