US Sportsbook Satisfaction Falls 3% As Bonuses Dry Up
Customer satisfaction with US online sportsbooks and iGaming apps fell 3% to a score of 74 out of 100 in 2026, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index's Entertainment Study 2026, published August 18, 2026, even as operators improved loading speed, content and platform reliability.
Bonuses Blamed As Apps Get Faster
The ACSI, a national economic indicator based at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business that runs around 200,000 consumer interviews a year across more than 400 companies, found the drop came despite gains on the metrics that usually drive satisfaction. Loading speed and the variety of wagering options each rose 4% to 79, and privacy held the top benchmark score at 80.
The index instead attributes the shortfall to operators cutting promotional spending by roughly 20% year over year as the market matures, according to data cited in ACSI's own release from Legal Sports Report, alongside rising customer expectations that outpaced what sportsbooks actually delivered.
“Content and technology improved across the board this year, yet in most of these industries, satisfaction still declined or barely moved,” said Forrest Morgeson, Associate Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and ACSI's Director of Research Emeritus. “That's because a better product is the baseline now; it doesn't move the needle. What moves satisfaction is making the whole experience simpler.”
DraftKings, FanDuel And BetMGM Converge
The decline in satisfaction flattened the field at the top. DraftKings, the highest scorer a year ago, fell 5% to 74; FanDuel dropped 3% to the same score; and BetMGM slipped 4%, leaving the three tied together in a nine-point spread that used to separate them.
By contrast, Caesars climbed 3% to 71, and theScore Bet, newly measured this year at 71, gained ground after PENN Entertainment ended its ESPN BET partnership in December.
Customers who use both sportsbook and online casino products in one app reported the highest satisfaction, at 78, ahead of sportsbook-only users at 75 and casino-only users at 70.
ACSI notes DraftKings announced plans in March 2026 for a unified super app combining sportsbook, casino, lottery and prediction market products under a single account, a structural response to the same cross-product pattern.
What It Means For Operators
Speaking to Gambling Insider about the broader shift, Optimove's North American gaming sales director Jeff Laniado compared the sportsbook bonus pullback to the end of subsidised ride-hailing pricing a decade ago.
“These companies were just buying market share, and they were focused on growth,” he said, pointing to New York's early $3,000 deposit bonus era as an example of a period operators have since reined in as public shareholders demand profitability.
The ACSI study also found a split by bet type: car racing bettors reported the highest satisfaction of any sport, at 82, while NBA bettors reported the lowest, at 76.
With 41 US jurisdictions now running legal sports betting and no new state having launched since Missouri went live in 2025, the report suggests the industry's next gains in satisfaction will have to come from experience design rather than additional promotional spend or new markets.
Read more in our US gambling news coverage.
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