Ohio Takes Down Fanatics Sports Betting Ad

The Ohio Casino Control Commission has ordered Fanatics Sportsbook to pull the plug on a social media advertisement that used the company’s merchandise business to raise awareness about the brand’s sports betting division. As per the latest information, the regulator is still in the process of having the ad removed.

Fanatics Chases Synergies Between Business Arms

Specifically, Fanatics published a social media ad, offering customers who bought a baseball hat worth $29.99 to have this amount matched on their Fanatics Sportsbook app in Ohio. The promotion applies to new customers only, and the advertisement was well-aligned with the state’s responsible gambling advertisement code.

This raises the question as to why the commission would go after it. Jessica Franks, the commission’s director of communications, said that the regulator was in the process of having the ad removed. Social chatter also surfaced, with some criticizing the fact that the ad could be seen by pretty much anyone on the Fanatics’ website.

This included underage individuals. Although Fanatics is hardly going to allow underage individuals to gamble, the issue of pushing gambling content onto the website’s audience indiscriminately has ruffled some feathers.

This early misfire, though, may prove important for Fanatics, which is learning by doing as have many other companies in the past. The company is first rolling out its products in Ohio and Tennessee, but it will then carry on with a planned launch in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the United States.

Steady Focus on US Sports Betting

The company also confirmed that it has purchased PointsBet’s US assets for the bargain sum of $150 million. It’s understandable that Fanatics is looking for synergies when it comes to its retail merchandise business, and finding a way to onboard customers between sports betting and sports apparel is definitely something the company would be looking hard at.

Fanatics has a 95-million-strong customer base which means that the potential to explore this and many other opportunities is immense. Fanatics has not commented on the recent issue with the advertisement, but the company remains confident that being one of the later entities to arrive in the sector, the company can learn from the experiences of others. Just not when it concerns social media advertising it seems.