Winning hearts & minds: How influencer partnerships help sportsbook operators change the game

Having founded the BookIt Sports brand in 2019, Trent Attyah became one of the first recognisable figures on social media platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok and Instagram for the bets he would place on any given day. As many entertainment viewers may have discovered in watching Attyah lose a particular wager, his personality resonated with fellow bettors given the frustration or elation he was experiencing in real time. While BookIt Sports does not offer sports betting to its consumers, Attyah harnessed the attention he had garnered through social media and used it to form a new collaboration with PrizePicks just four years after the operator had originally debuted in the space.  

Relatable content 

“I had this idea for a mobile app that was essentially an Instagram for sports bets. It was a social media platform and, long story short, we ended up pivoting from the social platform to creating a content brand but just for sports betters. I was on TikTok, which is where I really started, and was just making relatable content about betting even though at the time I was not affiliated with PrizePicks in any way and wasn’t even really a fan of player projections,” Attyah told Gambling Insider.  

“I was only betting on teams, overs/unders and stuff like that. But I was making videos that my audience, the average sports bettor in the space, could really resonate with and ended up going viral overnight. It was crazy and I was just posting videos, getting millions and millions of views, which then led to getting some inquiries about partnerships.” 

Attyah “obviously” began his search for a potential collaboration by focusing on one of the “Goliaths” in DraftKings and FanDuel. But he was also being constantly reminded of a certain DFS operator that had plenty of ideas as to how both parties could expand their respective business ventures. “There was one partner that would always, so persistently, want to hit my inbox and sell me on their product. And that was PrizePicks.” 

“At the time, I’d never heard of PrizePicks or had any idea what they were. But they were so persistent; they would not give up. And I kept shutting it down because I didn’t like choosing players or daily fantasy, that wasn’t my thing. I loved traditional sportsbooks, but it got to a point where I said ‘okay, let’s just give them the time of day, hear them out and see what’s up,’” Attyah explained. 

“I think they had maybe five employees, which is crazy considering where they are now; but we took the phone call and they were just so sold on me. At the time they had no partnerships with influencers, so I think they just did the best they could to sell me on this product, what it does, where they’re going, what the future looks like and so I took a chance.” 

That “chance” was in the form of a one-month contract between Attyah and PrizePicks, having now grown into a six-year partnership that has helped the operator expand its business to 45 states within the US along with Washington DC. Attyah, meanwhile, has now surpassed 375,000 followers on X and currently maintains more than 486,000 followers through TikTok where he originated.  

The right partnerships 

PrizePicks CMO Mike Quigley also spoke on the different methods with which the operator has applied its collaboration with Attyah and fellow influencers such as Drew “Druski” Desbordes and Joe Budden. He told Gambling Insider: “Partnerships and collaborations with notable creators have been a significant driver of PrizePicks’ brand awareness, interest and engagement for years. We have had the good fortune to work with many talented influencers and personalities early in their careers, watching them ascend while promoting our brand and growing into some of the top creators in all of sports and entertainment.” 

Quigley continued: “Not only do we utilise brand partners for social media campaigns, we tap them for national advertising spots that drive mass market awareness for sports fans across the country. These ambassadors speak to our audience on both a mass and micro scale through diverse mediums, allowing us to attract new players across a variety of demographics.” 

Touching on how PrizePicks goes about seeking potential deals with various influencers, Quigley stated the operator constantly spreads awareness of the brand through “smart and efficient” partnerships as opposed to finding the “biggest names possible” which may command “large spends” and show little ROI.  

“Partners like Druski and Trent Attyah are two prime examples. Our member base is very social media-driven and our goal is to meet them where they are, something that Druski and Trent have perfected. They have cracked the code to becoming engaging social personas and are able to disseminate our brand messages in creative ways that our members grasp,” Quigley said. 

Attyah found little issue in describing why fellow operators may struggle to generate similar levels of growth as PrizePicks. “The way they’ve been able to establish this brand, this culture and this community is light years ahead of anybody or any of the other goliaths in the space. Look at all these other little guys that are under the big three, the reason they’re failing is because of their lack of community, their lack of culture and the lack of just understanding what the user wants.”  

A comparable partnership is perhaps that of DraftKings with NBA superstar LeBron James, as well as with celebrity comedian Kevin Hart. Or perhaps not so comparable… Attyah certainly had choice words for how he believes collaborations with influencers can provide higher levels of consumer interest for sportsbook operators.  

“LeBron’s not playing DraftKings, he never will. He doesn’t give a s**t and same with Kevin Hart. Druski and I are obsessed with PrizePicks. We’ll play it every single day. We’re posting content about it, asking for plays, we just genuinely use the product. I guarantee you LeBron’s never used DraftKings and more than likely Kevin Hart doesn’t use DraftKings either,” Attyah said. 

High profiles 

Despite the stance Attyah takes on celebrities and former athletes becoming partners with sportsbooks, it has not stopped brands such as BetMGM from forging its own collaborations, having done so with former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter in July 2025. BetMGM Director of Brand AJ Mazza told Gambling Insider: “Derek Jeter and really all of our athlete ambassadors, we do deals with them to include obviously their name, image and likeness in our advertising, but also in all of our communications, quite frankly. With athletes particularly like Derek Jeter, Wayne Gretzky, Barry Sanders, we built into all of those contracts the ability for us to host VIP events and visiting people from a hospitality perspective. 

“When we look at a Lions game, for example, and we want to take some of our players to a VIP suite, we can have a meet and greet with Barry Sanders there. It’s really important for our contract that we build in the ability to leverage them both in advertising and in some of those more intimate opportunities we want to give our players as well as on the iCasino or iGaming side.” 

In 2020, the operator partnered with celebrity actor Jamie Foxx for a new advertising campaign, The King of Sportsbooks, as part of a relationship that has now extended over five years. As recently as the 2024-2025 NFL season, Foxx was starring in digital campaigns to help promote numerous BetMGM offerings for its consumer base. Even walking around the Las Vegas Strip, it is near impossible to not come across an advertisement board with Foxx and the BetMGM logo displayed. Location, as Mazza explained with Sanders and the Detroit Lions, is key for these partnerships to find success within the market BetMGM is looking to expand its presence.  

“If you go into MGM Grand Detroit, we will be featuring Barry Sanders more prominently than if you were at MGM Springfield where you’ll see Kevin Garnett on the wall, as we do try to leverage all of our brand ambassadors if we have one in a key market,” Mazza said.  

“Oftentimes you would see Jamie Foxx in Las Vegas if we didn’t have a perfect fit from an athlete perspective. It’s focused mostly on the celebrity and athlete ambassador themself, but certainly it’s a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to our team and league partners especially. In the land-based casinos or in the sports books we will leverage those markets as well, whether it be the Lions in Detroit or the Raiders in Vegas, so we use both the athletes and league IP. But again, it’s about extending the brand and creating a continuity between the digital and physical experience that we feel are the only brand that can offer.” 

Increasing activity 

Mazza also spoke on how BetMGM prefers to find ambassadors who are a greater fit to promote the respective sport its hoping to draw increased activity. These include Jeter for baseball, Sanders for football and Gretzky for hockey, having even released a Gretzky Light the Lamp slot game exclusively in New Jersey and Michigan in February 2025.  

The NHL Hall-of-Famer starred in the operator’s advertising campaign, Vegas Magic, which highlighted how live dealer games from BetMGM Casino let players “feel the magic of Vegas” in their own homes, ending with Gretzky at the blackjack table making a reference to his famous jersey number 99. “The ability to bring ‘Vegas Magic’ to its players is one of the biggest reasons BetMGM is so unique. Gretzky Light the Lamp is a great combined example of my role as a BetMGM ambassador and the company’s constant innovation,” Gretzky said at the time of launch.  

Not shying away from how social media can be applied to generate traction on the operator’s sports betting and iCasino offerings, Mazza commented: “Obviously, being able to harness their reach is great for us. We work into all of our deals, the social media posts, posting on our behalf, their ads and their paid content. Jamie Foxx has 17 million followers on Instagram, Kevin Garnett has over a million, Jeter just shy of a million, and so it’s important for us to use that as a handle or a mouthpiece for the brand. A lot of people trust spokespeople, whether those are now influencers or celebrities. If they’re advocating for something, some people make decisions based on that. We are able to leverage their personal handles, but then also use them in our own sort of paid advertising on social media as well.” 

Mazza continued: “We believe these legendary athletes help convey or create memorable and legendary experiences on and offline, unlike the rest of the category. It’s really going to be about the campaign, the launches and we’re really excited to bring it to market.” Mazza went on to preview the operator’s newly introduced “Legendary” brand which will hope to be featured “for a long time,” but “certainly” into the 2025-2026 NFL season kicking off in September. Highlighting how the MGM brand in general can be traced back throughout the industry’s history, Mazza explained the operator’s sense of “credibility” in the sports betting landscape even while still expanding its presence in the market.  

“I think when we look at our place in sort of the landscape of sportsbook operators and iGaming, we are certainly the entertainment brand having been born out of Las Vegas and with MGM as our parent company. We feel like it gives us the liberty to have credibility and to lean into athletes, celebrities and the more entertaining spectrum,” Mazza said.   

“It’s part of our brand DNA to utilise them because we believe celebrities and athletes can help breakthrough to people who are fans of them. They obviously accrue their own personal following, and when used properly, the goal is to hopefully resonate with the respective player’s fanbase.” 

Fanatics Betting and Gaming VP of Communications Kevin Hennessy additionally explained how the sportsbook integrates its ambassadors with the sport in which they have the most experience, having said, “The best example that I can give in our short history is when Jalen Rose headlined our college basketball campaign. 

“We were looking for someone that had real credibility in the college basketball space and there aren’t too many people that can say they revolutionized the college game like Jalen – as a member of the Michigan Fab 5. He headlined our ad campaign and one customer received tickets to San Antonio to the game and met with Jalen. It was an experience that Fanatics and only Fanatics could offer. For Fanatics Sportsbook and Casino it will always be about authenticity. If we are working with a well-known figure we will have an authentic reason for bringing that person on board.” 

The public response 

A relatively unconsidered part of forming these collaborations with influencers, athletes and celebrities is the possibility of a negative response from the public if a bet, parlay or future were to be unsuccessfully promoted by each respective figure. Take a FanDuel or DraftKings, which routinely partner with various sports networks and leagues to showcase its odds during a live broadcast, or even have part of the broadcasting team make wagers on air. If one were to see Charles Barkley recommend taking the over on points at halftime, what’s stopping a near automatic reaction of flooding the NBA Hall-of-Famer with hate messages if the bet were to be deemed unsuccessful?  

This is not to say a Charles Barkley, Wayne Gretzky or Trent Attyah would care for the negative responses each could be exposed to given either their dissociation with social media, or in Attyah’s case, the knowledge that some online voices are much quieter in-person than through a cellphone or laptop.  

“99% of the time what people are saying in my DMs would never be said in person. I’ve had thousands of run-ins with people in public, and I’ve never once had somebody say anything negative to me. I know these people are mad at the moment, and they want to express their anger and put it on somebody else, which is me typically,” Attyah said.  

“But I know for a fact if I met them in person, they wouldn’t say that. In fact, some dude the other day ran into me at the Rangers game and was begging me to follow him on Twitter. He loves me, he’s a huge fan, so I say ‘fine, I’ll follow him.’ I clicked his profile, check his DMs and there’s 17 straight messages of him saying, f**k you, you’re a piece of s**t, go to hell, and this is literally a prime example of what I’m talking about. He was so nice, happy to see me, asking for a picture. There’s two sides to it every time, but I never let it get to me and I just keep pushing through.” 

Where next? 

Ultimately, the cover of a hidden profile picture or typing from behind a mobile device is enough to drive any user towards sending hateful messages towards ambassadors of a respective operator, and even current athletes face the same issue in their day-to-day lives. Universities around the US have had to relay messages about the dangers of sending hate to an 18-, 19- or 20-year-old student just attempting to help their team win in whatever way possible.  

In July 2025, during the MLB’s All-Star Break, starting pitcher Lucas Giolito had to confront Commissioner Rob Manfred about the negativity his own family has seen from sports bettors and the difficulties explaining to his young daughter why people online would want to endanger their livelihood. It’s one of the many reasons, as Mazza would go on to point out, why the popularity of partnering with athletes who are still competing in their respective sport has not grown among sportsbooks.  

That, along with the fact leagues prohibit its athletes from, at the very least, wagering on the sports itself, is why operators such as DraftKings who do find themselves collaborating with athletes like James, will typically refrain from having the star speak on basketball wagers, or showcase any type of bet within the advertisement as well. Mazza also explained how having a Gretzky or Jeter discuss wagering on a sport they weren’t involved in can feel inauthentic for viewers, providing insight as to how the operator features its most prominent ambassadors.  

As the popularity around social media and sports betting continues to rise, the presence of ambassadors, influencers and celebrity partners will grow along with it, highlighted by a clear goal from operators of finding well-known voices to command attention towards its product. Influence is certainly a powerful trait to carry, and for those who can discover the right people to harness it with, the sports betting community has no limits as to what type of results can be discovered.