It’s a word, or abbreviation, or both, that will have many people rolling their eyes when they hear it while others’ light up with excitement – can you guess what it is yet?

This word is AI, of course! While many may be sick of hearing about it, of the many technological innovations bookmakers have dealt with in recent years, it’s hard to deny that AI is easily one of the biggest.

For marketers, AI has been both a blessing and a curse, depending on how one interprets its impact on search and discovery. A recent study by marketing firm Receptional has shone a light on how significant this change has been, looking at why some brands are ranked higher on AI chatbots.

ChatGPT is becoming increasingly popular as a search engine among consumers. Despite this, Receptional’s Managing Director, Justin Deaville, believes AI optimisation has been “barely on the radar yet”, though this is changing.

“When I present this research at industry conferences, I ask the room who’s actively working on AI optimisation. A handful of hands go up – maybe 5% of the audience,” he tells SBC News.

“That’s changing fast though. Until recently, iGaming queries didn’t trigger AI Overviews in Google. Now they do. Search ‘what’s the best betting app?’ and you’ll see one.

“The prevalence will only increase. But right now, most operators are focused on traditional channels. Which creates an opportunity for early movers.”

The bookies league table

SEO is dead, long live SEO – this may sound a tad overdramatic, but the evolution of SEO into AI engine optimisation (AIEO) and generative engine optimisation (GEO) has become very apparent.

So, what does Receptional’s research tell us about how different British operators are performing on AI? Which bookies would our future robot overlords most likely use to put their Saturday acca on?

The company ranked operators into four separate tiers: the leading brands winning the AI recommendation war; the ‘established middle’ of strong performers, which need to close the gap; the ‘emerging tier’ of underperforming big names; and the ‘opportunity tier’ of companies, which are ‘escaping invisibility’.

Looking at the top tier, some names are hardly a surprise. Bet365, Coral and Betfair all found their way onto the list – heritage brands which have been knocking around the online betting scene for years, while Coral has a retail pedigree going back nearly a century.

Some relative newcomers also found their way into the AI premier league. Dabble, founded in 2020, earned a spot through interactive features and bonusing, and while not mentioned by Receptional, the firm’s approach to marketing and social media engagement with gen Z and millennial punters has helped it build up a following.

Things get interesting when we look through the list. Some of the brands across the different tiers are part of the same parent companies, so to speak such as Entain and Flutter.

While Coral is in the premier league, so to speak, Ladbrokes is in the metaphorical League One of the ‘big names underperforming’. I found this noteworthy because Ladbrokes and Coral have been merged since 2016 as Ladbrokes Coral, and since 2017 have been owned by Entain.

Similarly, Flutter’s Betfair is competing in the Premier League, while its sister brand Paddy Power – like Ladbrokes and Coral, Paddy Power and Betfair are a merged entity – is also in league one. Meanwhile, Flutter’s bingo brand, Tombola, which is also easily the UK’s biggest online bingo brand, is in the premier league of AI search.

Even more surprisingly, Sky Bet is also in the third tier of AI search. Sky Bet is widely considered one of the biggest brands in British international betting and with a business model that many American firms have tried and failed to copy.

It also has a very high-profile and long-running partnership with the real-life English Football League (EFL) – the league comprises the Championship, League One and Two, for anyone unfamiliar.

The reasons behind these different rankings are varied. A possible answer could be that, as different brands were acquired by their respective parent companies at different times, there could be legacy issues. Another could be that best practices and technology have not been shared across group brands to the extent we’d expect.

However, according to Deaville, the answer is, “neither, really”. He adds: “Even if all your brands follow SEO best practice perfectly, that’s not enough for AI visibility. You can have world-class SEO and still get ignored by ChatGPT.

“AI rewards clear brand differentiation. Technical optimisation matters – but it’s also about whether AI can articulate what makes you different. Take Tombola. They score 87% because AI sees them as ‘Britain’s largest bingo site’. Clear specialist positioning.

“Two brands in the same group might have identical SEO foundations, but if one has sharper differentiation, it’ll outperform in AI recommendations. This is a return to old-school brand marketing – points of difference matter again.”

Is ChatGPT a chance for the underdogs?

The landscape operators find themselves competing in, is changing significantly, and not even with regards to AI and technology. This year, Britain will usher in a new era of taxation with online gaming taxes going up to 40%.

This is widely expected to have a huge impact on the small-to-medium sized tranche of operators, though the big names of bet365, Betfred, Entain, Flutter Entertainment and Evoke will still be hard hit – the latter is already going through a strategic review of its business.

While the financial situation for these smaller firms may look bleak, is AI giving them a chance to deal a blow to the big dogs and win the customer acquisition game? Receptional’s report would suggest so.

A notable example of a cheeky upstart performing well in the AI league is Dabble. The Australia-founded sportsbook launched in the UK in May 2025, and has caught millennial and gen Z customers’ attention with its approach to marketing, promotions and product design.

The firm features in Receptional’s premier league (as I’m putting it) of operator AI search with a score of 86%, with strengthen’s listed as innovative social and interactive features, a no-deposit bonus, and its ‘Rocket Boosts’ promotions.

“Dabble’s a perfect example. They’re a newcomer but score 86% – higher than William Hill at 81%,” says Deaville. “Why? Clear differentiation. App-focused. Social betting features. Rocket Boosts. AI can grab hold of these and articulate them clearly.

“Heritage brands might have bigger marketing budgets, but if they can’t answer ‘what makes us different?’ in one sentence, neither can AI. The playing field’s been reset. Market share and advertising budgets don’t guarantee AI visibility. Clarity does.

“For newcomers with tight positioning, this is the biggest organic acquisition opportunity in more than a decade. But only if they can measure what’s happening (most can’t track AI traffic properly yet) and systematically build the authority signals AI looks for.

“We’re helping a few operators get this right through readiness reviews – measurement setup, visibility assessment, and a 90-day roadmap of what to prioritise. The brands moving now will have a significant first-mover advantage.”

Something to remember with AI though is the importance of prompts – this is true of both operators and customers. As Deaville explains, operators need to consider how they describe and market themselves and their products in a way that will register with AI search.

It is also important to remember though, an operators’ AI approach is only as good as the customer is at writing prompts. A simple change in language can lead to very different results when using ChatGPT to search for good betting options, in this writer’s experience anyway.

Below you’ll see two examples: one in which asking ChatGPT about what bookmaker to use prompted recommendations for bet365, Betfred, BoyleSports and SBK; while another prompted a response that ChatGPT “can’t recommend or direct you to specific betting sites or services”, and instead making recommendations for what to consider in the right bookmaker.

This highlights the need for specifics when using AI. Older brands need to be more aware of this than anyone else. The time for complacency is over – the goalposts have shifted significantly.

AI has not undone all the hard work operators and their marketers have put into building brand image over the past 20 years, nor the work put into building up familiarity through retail estates and quality products. But it has made it harder.

As Receptional’s Deaville puts it: “Legacy brands sometimes assume their audience already knows what makes them special, so those differentiators aren’t prominently featured on the website. AI doesn’t have that context. It needs to be told explicitly.”