Online Betting Sites: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which online betting sites lead AI recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• Which brands saw the largest coverage gains and declines since September?
• How many qualified observations did the benchmark produce this month?

DraftKings and FanDuel finished October 2026 level on valid recommendation coverage, each at 60.4%. DraftKings holds the category leadership position within the benchmark's tracked series, having led in three of the four months since the July 2026 baseline; FanDuel actually posts a slightly higher rank-one rate this month, 26.3% against DraftKings' 24.0%. BetMGM followed at 56.8%. The gap from the leaders to the next brand, bet365, was 12.4 points.

The largest coverage increase from September 2026 to October 2026 came from Bally Bet, which rose to 10.7% in October 2026 from 6.3% in September 2026, a gain of 4.4 points. The largest coverage decline over the same span came from ESPN Bet, which slipped to 5.2% in October 2026 from 5.3% in September 2026, a change of 0.1 points, within normal variation.

The month was mixed. Two brands moved beyond normal month-to-month variation upward: Bally Bet and BetRivers. One brand moved beyond normal variation downward: bet365. Five brands were stable and one is a watch item.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 251 qualified observations in July 2026 and 308 in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the number of canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were represented in both months.

September 2026, the intermediate month, recorded a recommendation-shaped answer share of 26.0% and a valid recommendation shortlist share of 43.3%.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Online Betting Sites

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many observations were collected, and how many qualified for the public benchmark?
• What types of observations were removed before the public denominator was set?

The public benchmark reports qualified observations only, after removing off-topic or non-brand-relevant AI/search responses. The benchmark qualified 251 observations in July 2026 and 308 observations in October 2026, drawn from nine tracked brands across six canonical AI surface families.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the nine tracked betting sites rank across coverage, top-three rate, and rank-one rate?
• Which brands combine high presence rates with high recommendation coverage?
• What is the difference between presence rate and valid recommendation coverage?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the top three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended first.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative sentiment among mentions, on a scale from -1 to 1.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which online betting sites gained or lost the most recommendation coverage since the July baseline?
• Why did BetRivers rise and bet365 fall in coverage?
• How does DraftKings retain the category leadership position when FanDuel posts a higher rank-one rate?

Largest Increase: BetRivers

BetRivers rose from 10.8% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 25.7% in October 2026, an increase of 14.9 points, moving beyond normal month-to-month variation. The brand also rose from September 2026 to October 2026, from 17.2% to 25.7%, a gain of 8.5 points that was itself beyond normal variation. Coverage grew alongside a rise in net sentiment, from 0.2 to 0.4, while presence rate declined from 73.3% to 65.3%. Rank-one rate remained at 0.0% in both months, with 79 valid recommendations in October 2026.

Largest Decline: bet365

bet365 fell from 58.2% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 48.0% in October 2026, a decline of 10.2 points, beyond normal variation. The brand declined from July 2026 through September 2026 before rising from 37.6% in September 2026 to 48.0% in October 2026, a rebound of 10.4 points that was itself beyond normal variation. The baseline-to-current decline was accompanied by a drop in presence rate from 84.5% to 77.9% and a decline in top-three rate from 27.5% to 7.8%. The brand's valid recommendation count stood at 148 in October 2026, up from 120 in September 2026.

Category Leader: DraftKings

DraftKings and FanDuel are tied on valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, both at 60.4%. FanDuel posts a higher rank-one rate this month, 26.3% against DraftKings' 24.0%, but DraftKings retains the category leadership position based on its standing across the tracked series, having led in three of the four months since the July 2026 baseline — July, August, and October — while FanDuel led only in September. Both brands sat at a presence rate above 99% in October 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do FanDuel and DraftKings differ once coverage is equalized on placement?
• What does placement data reveal about first-position recommendation power that coverage alone does not show?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand appears within recommendation shortlists. FanDuel and DraftKings finished level on coverage in October 2026 and their placement rates were close but not identical.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates. FanDuel led the top-three rate over DraftKings by 1.3 points in October 2026, while both brands sat within a few points on rank-one rate.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the current benchmark?
• Why are Pricing & Value and Multi-Brand Comparison absent from the qualified observation set?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class of discovery.

The current public series measures the Brand Recommendation class of discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What information is retained in each prompt-level observation behind the benchmark?
• Does source presence in AI answers prove that source caused the recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or sales attribution
• The full universe of possible AI responses
• Organic-search ranking
• Social mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI responses in the online betting category?
• How concentrated are citations across the top domains?
• Are online betting operators' own domains shaping AI recommendations?

Across all AI responses in this measurement period, 5,144 citations pointed to 1,217 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed: the top 10 domains together account for roughly one quarter of all citations, and no single domain exceeds 5.4% share. Sports media and betting-analytics outlets dominate the list, with general-purpose platforms such as YouTube, Google, and Reddit also appearing. No tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10, so the sources shaping AI recommendations in this vertical are primarily third-party coverage rather than official operator sites.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI systems discover, mention, and recommend brands across the six major AI search surfaces. This index provides a neutral, repeatable measurement of category-level visibility in AI-driven discovery.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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