In February, several big sports-gambling companies spent millions of dollars each to promote their brands during the Super Bowl. The apps DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesar’s Sportsbook all bought commercial time. NBC reportedly charged advertisers somewhere between $6 million and $7 million per 30-second spot. Meanwhile, despite the fact that legal cannabis, like online gambling, is a fast-growing, relatively new business, not a single cannabis company advertised during the Super Bowl. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to or because they lacked the money. It was because such advertising is not allowed.

Late last year, the e-commerce platform Weedmaps approached NBC about running a spot during the big game and was rejected out of hand. “The answer was a hard no,” Weedmaps’ Chief Operating Officer Juanjo Feijoo told Adweek. “They wouldn’t even entertain the conversation.” This was despite the fact that Weedmaps isn’t really a cannabis company at all; it’s essentially a software and media company. It never goes near the plant itself. Just the word “cannabis” appeared to put off the network advertising people.

The two industries – cannabis and sports gambling – have some things in common. They are roughly the same size – both are expected to be pulling in between $30 billion and $50 billion in yearly revenue by 2025, if not sooner. They both became widely legal only in recent years. A 2018 Supreme Court decision lifted the federal ban on sports gambling in states outside Nevada, leaving legality up to the states. Thirty states now allow it in one form or another, with five more expected to do so soon. [Read More @ Newsweek]