The Internet’s Top Five Betting Influencers

Now, it is vital to separate the term influencer from tipster. Tipsters are people who may make money in various ways, but chiefly do so from telling gamblers how they should bet. Influencers are a different breed. They are social media personalities or ones that have created their platforms, where they reach vast audiences, shaping how these people engage in online gambling. They not only provide guidance to their followers but also create trends via what they promote and how they act, and they can have a sizeable impact on the sports wagering landscape at large.

Unlike the online casino side of the gambling industry, where people tune in to watch others gamble on slots and table games, watching someone bet on sports is not as exciting; due to how this pastime works, gamblers wagering on events that will happen several days in the future. So, there are really no famed sportsbook streamers, at least not to the level that the gaming section of the sector boasts.

Hence, most betting influencers have cultivated a fan base because of their charismatic personalities. They have attracted people by providing entertainment in a digestible format related to sports betting. Once PASPA was abolished and the US market opened up, this arena seemingly blew up, but some of its top faces were active in it before 2018. Yet, today, everyone is pretty much free to collaborate with top sports franchises and brands and pull in revenues that were previously unimaginable. Thus, expect to see more betting influencers pop up, even with rising scrutiny and criticism that these individuals glamorize this hobby, often downplaying the risks it carries.

David Portnoy

Most American sports gamblers who are also fans of pizza are probably super familiar with David or Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, a US media company that was established in 2003. It began as a four-page print publication distributed weekly for free at Boston transit spots, supplying fantasy sports projections and gambling ads. It then moved to operate as a blog website (2007), and in 2009, it moved away from its Boston home base, setting up shop in New York, where it adopted a digital-only model.

Portnoy, the brain behind Barstool, cultivated his El Presidente persona once his company started operating on the Web, and he became famous for his blunt character and sense of humor. In 2017, he started a pizza shop review show online, which is a massive success even now, and has its own app – One Bite. His Stool Presidente account on Twitter/X has 3.3 million followers, and on there, Dave recaps football NFL and college games while also giving betting advice. On Instagram, he boasts 5.4 million followers, but on there, he primarily posts vlogs and pizza content.

From 2020 to 2023, Portnoy gradually sold Barstool Sports to Penn Entertainment for over $500 million, which later gave Portnoy his company back for a dollar, plus 50% of any future sale of it. Now, that is a deal.

Pat McAfee

McAfee is a former pro football punter turned analysis and color commentator for the WWE. He played football for the West Virginia Mountaineers, participating in the Super Bowl XLIV as a member of the Indianapolis Colts, who selected him in the 2009 NFL Draft in its seventh round. Pat retired in 2017 from pro football and joined Barstool Sports, hosting his SiriusXM show named the – Pat McAfee Show on the Barstool Power 85 channel. However, he left the company in 2018 and began his own, producing four podcasts. In 2019, he moved to a weekly radio program syndicated by Westwood One and DAZN, and in 2020, he transferred back to Sirius XM for Mad Dog Sports. Before this occurred, McAfee also worked for ESPN as a college football color analyst.

In 2021, Fan Duel, the famous US fantasy sports and betting operator, paid MacAfee $120 million for this company to be his show’s official odds provider. From that point on, this former punter went deep into the gambling arena, with the network’s Hammer Dahn show, which focuses solely on gambling, being one of the most popular podcasts of its kind online.

Dan Katz

Nicknamed Big Cat, Katz is another Barstool personality, who gained notoriety as the co-host of Pardon My Take, a show on Barstool (for a moment on ESPN also) that combines sports, interviews, and absurd segments and allegedly has more than 1.5 million listeners per episode. Known as a humorous loudmouth, Katz’s comedic-driven approach to poking fun at himself and his bets has endeared him to North American gamblers, as he gets seen as super relatable to the casual fan.

Hailing from Chicago, Katz has 1.7 million followers on Twitter and another one million on Instagram. He has appeared on NBC News Nightline, SportsCenter, and various other mainstream shows and is the second person most associated with the Barstool brand.

Dave Oancea

Better known as Vegas Dave, Oancea calls himself a serial entrepreneur, but many just label him a sports betting hustler. He is responsible for the most expensive trading card sale ever, a Mike Trout rookie one that Oancea bought for $400,000 but managed to auction off for $3.9 million. He claims he is the world’s best sports information consultant, but his public betting history tells a different story.

In 2015, Vegas Dave gained recognition and made some headlines for collecting a Kansas City Royals $2.5 million futures bet payout, and a year later, he won another $2.3 million in the 2016 Super Bowl due to the Broncos beating the Panthers. Yet, he has also had many high-profile blunders, like wagering a million dollars on Miesha Tate to retain her title at UFC 200, in a fight she got dominated in by Amanda Nunes. This is only one example of Dave getting things wrong. He also does not provide details about his loss-win percentage but confidently gives out picks to his followers, to whom he advertises himself as the betting GOAT.

Drake

We did an entire article on Drake’s relationship with Stake.com, and while we were debating whether we should add him to this list or not, we thought – why not? He’s more influential than the other four. Drake is a global superstar who has gone gambling crazy post-2020. He started with casino gaming but now has dove deep into sports betting and is quite proud to post his hefty slips online. He is wrong more than half the time, but that does not seem to discourage him. If you want to know more about his sports betting endeavors, check out our article dedicated to him and this beloved hobby of his.

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